I got this fair-condition hardcover at a local Savers thrift shop. (While its illustrations by Neil Waldman are evocative, I still prefer the Charles Mikolaycak illustrations in this edition. )

"The Highwayman," which I first heard in high school English class as an illustration of metaphor ("The road was a ribbon of moonlight"), is a wildly romantic tale of love and death - OK, it's on the melodramatic side, but I like that in a poem. The illustrations here tend towards the spare and abstract, though the shadow of the soldiers binding the landlord's daughter are all too clear.

The poem's been put to music several times. The first version I remember was done by a group whose name I can't recall - may have been "The Highwaymen" but if so it's not the more recent group of that name; this was in the '60s or early '70s. (Phil Ochs did the song back then as well, though his version isn't my favorite.) More recently, Loreena McKennit had a version of the poem on her album "Book of Secrets". The poem even has its own TV Tropes page!

I left this book in the Little Free Library on this warm afternoon; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]