The Boundless Deep
Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Adding to library failed
Please try again
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
LIMITED TIME OFFER
Get 3 months for £0.99/mo
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.
The Boundless Deep
Narrated by:
Oliver Hembrough
Pre-order Now for £22.59
-
Narrated by:
-
Oliver Hembrough
-
By:
-
Richard Holmes
About this listen
Tennyson rose to eminence as rapid and revolutionary discoveries were being made in the fields of biology, astronomy, geology, and marine science. It was a period of immense change akin to our own. For the first time, people were pursuing answers to questions that had felt previously unknowable—about biological evolution, the notion of a godless, unpitying universe, and of planetary extinction. These were as terrifying to Tennyson as climate catastrophe is to us today. It forced many to grapple with their understanding of the known world and their place within it and fostered a growing tension between religion and science.
Tennyson’s work during these years is suffused with strangely modern magic, and in Holmes’ extraordinary biography, we witness Tennyson wrestling with mind-altering ideas about geology and deep time, the vastness, beauty, and terror of the new cosmology, and the challenges of social revolution. Tennyson’s wild imagination and deep engagement with these concepts helped him emerge as the poetic voice of his generation—and he remains an inspiration for our own age.
Critic reviews
Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize
Named a Book of the Year by the Times, Daily Telegraph, Spectator, Financial Times, and Observer
“Brilliant. . . . Holmes depicts an intense, charismatic, intellectually curious young man whose poetry was infused with the revolutionary scientific discoveries of the day. . . . This shrewd, sensitive, beautifully written portrait provides a much-needed restoration of the human being beneath a barnacle-encrusted reputation. A must for poetry readers and a treat for anyone who enjoys fine literary biography.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“[Holmes] replaces the dusty usual portraits of the poet laureate . . . with a sparkling vision of him as an intelligent and imaginative man who welcomed in the new scientific age. Truly enriching.”
—Sunday Times (London)
“Holmes is probably our greatest chronicler of the Romantic poets. . . . The Boundless Deep is a dazzling and tireless work of advocacy.”
—The Times (London)
“Compelling. . . . A fascinating insight into a great British poet whose depths . . . remain boundless.”
—Daily Telegraph
“A spryly written but deeply learned biography.”
—Spectator
“There is an unusual, gentle mixture of imagination and empiricism in everything Holmes writes: a poetic sense of human psychology combined with a meticulous organized mind.”
—New Statesman
“The Boundless Deep shakes off the poet’s fusty image to reveal a young man grappling with the doubts of his age. . . . Holmes presents Tennyson as more interesting, more clever, more elusive and downright peculiar than modern readers may imagine.”
—Observer
Named a Book of the Year by the Times, Daily Telegraph, Spectator, Financial Times, and Observer
“Brilliant. . . . Holmes depicts an intense, charismatic, intellectually curious young man whose poetry was infused with the revolutionary scientific discoveries of the day. . . . This shrewd, sensitive, beautifully written portrait provides a much-needed restoration of the human being beneath a barnacle-encrusted reputation. A must for poetry readers and a treat for anyone who enjoys fine literary biography.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“[Holmes] replaces the dusty usual portraits of the poet laureate . . . with a sparkling vision of him as an intelligent and imaginative man who welcomed in the new scientific age. Truly enriching.”
—Sunday Times (London)
“Holmes is probably our greatest chronicler of the Romantic poets. . . . The Boundless Deep is a dazzling and tireless work of advocacy.”
—The Times (London)
“Compelling. . . . A fascinating insight into a great British poet whose depths . . . remain boundless.”
—Daily Telegraph
“A spryly written but deeply learned biography.”
—Spectator
“There is an unusual, gentle mixture of imagination and empiricism in everything Holmes writes: a poetic sense of human psychology combined with a meticulous organized mind.”
—New Statesman
“The Boundless Deep shakes off the poet’s fusty image to reveal a young man grappling with the doubts of his age. . . . Holmes presents Tennyson as more interesting, more clever, more elusive and downright peculiar than modern readers may imagine.”
—Observer
No reviews yet