George Murray was a British poet, translator and scholar who lived out most of his life in Canada, where he was a classics master at a Montreal high school. In this collection, intermixed with his own original poetry, are Murray's translations of works by popular French poets like Victor Hugo, Alphonse de Lamartine, Alfred de Musset, Gérard de Nerval and Théophile Gautier, along with selections from Greek, Latin, Swedish and German authors. The volume was edited by "the grand old man of Canadian letters" and Montreal Gazette literary editor John Reade, who also provided the prefatory biographical memoir. - Summary by Tomas Peter