This study surveys Hughes's entire achievement, including Birthday Letters. It contains a great deal of new information, including extracts from Hughes's letters, and the first publication of the background story of Crow. There are chapters on the mythic imagination, on the poetic relationship of Hughes and Plath, and on the evolution of a Hughes poem through all its manuscript drafts. However, the main purpose is to attempt an adequate reading of his poetry, revealing the underlying quest which transformed his imagination, leading him by painful stages from a vision of a world made of blood to a vision of a world made of light. The author has written and edited several books on both D.H. Lawrence and Ted Hughes. He enjoyed the friendship of Ted Hughes for 30 years and received 145 letters from him.