Capturing the downright agonizing ecstasy of first love, the new film Bright Star, now showing nationwide, is Jane Campion’s finest work since The Piano in 1993. The film’s focal point is on the scorching love between the young, struggling legend-to-be John Keats and his fabulous amour-next-door, Fanny Brawne (played expertly by Abbie Cornish, sure to be an Oscar front-runner in 2010).

As is expected, nothing ends well here due to a host of hurdles, including lack of cash, sickness that eventually leads to a breathtaking death (I won’t tell you whose!), and, of course, a downright conniving BFF who does his devious best to come between these two young lovers.

If this sort of thing sets off your own inner poet, why not regale your love with these specially selected titles from Cosimo Classics, where we have our very own historia amoris…

Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare: He is the greatest writer in the English language — perhaps in any language — and here, in one compact volume, is all the verse even many of those familiar with his plays have never read. In 1593 and 1594, while English theaters were closed in response to the plague, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) turned from drama to narrative poems, and published the dyad “Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece,” erotic meditations on lust and sexual power. Standing powerfully in opposition to each other, they also differ wildly from Shakespeare’s romantic sonnets — all 154 of them are here. Also in this hard-to-find collection are the Bard’s lesser known poems: “A Lover’s Complaint,” “The Passionate Pilgrim,” “Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music,” and “The Phoenix and the Turtle.” Rounding out the collection are poems from his plays, featuring beloved excerpts from The Tempest, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, and others. Not an academic work, this lovely volume lets Shakespeare’s words stand on their own, resounding — as ever they do — with their own unique power and beauty.

Historia Amoris: A History of Love Ancient and Modern: Not so much a chronicle of love as a reverie on eros throughout history and literature and mythology, this extraordinary 1906 volume is an all but lost work of American writer Edgar Saltus (1855-1921), an unheralded innovator of creative nonfiction and one of the most astonishingly stylish writers of the early 20th century. With the wit of Wilde, the gloominess of Poe, and a decadence uniquely his own, Saltus delves into humanity’s relationship with itself, from the barbarism of sex in prehistory to the sundering of modesty from romance in 18th-century Europe. Redolent of dark poetry, Saltus’s prose is riveting and seductive-this is a masterpiece awaiting rediscovery by adventurous 21st-century readers.

Love Letters Made Easy: This delightful 1919 book, reprinted here in a charming replica edition, is a complete guide to what one needs to know to write the perfect love letter. While the advice may be amusingly dated in some of its details — the hidden codes in the alignment of postage stamps are probably no longer appreciated today — the broad counsel would be wisely heeded by those “wounded by Cupid’s dart” and hoping to make their best written impression on a beloved. Here the lovestruck reader will find admonitions that particular kinds of thoughtfulness, like remembering birthdays and anniversaries, are always treasured; practical reminders, such as “Don’t write like the tracks of an intoxicated hen”; and guides to which gifts go best with a love letter. Some conundrums of 21st-century lovers are not, of course, here addressed — you’re on your own in deciding whether it’s appropriate to propose marriage via email — but almost every contingency a tongue-tied lover may face is addressed with assistance as useful as it is timeless.

Sylvia’s Lovers: British novelist Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865) — whose books were sometimes initially credited to, simply, “Mrs. Gaskell” — is now recognized as having created some of the most complex and broadminded depictions of women in the literature of the age, and is today justly celebrated for her precocious use of the regional dialect and slang of England’s industrial North. Sylvia’s Lovers — Gaskell’s fifth novel, first published in 1863 — is the melodramatic tale of a star-crossed romantic triangle between farmgirl Sylvia Robson and the two men who love her: her cousin Philip and sailor Charlie Kinread. Though today considered one of Gaskell’s minor works, the author herself called this “the saddest story I ever wrote.” Friend and literary companion to such figures as Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë, Gaskell is today being restored to her rightful place alongside her. This delightful replica volume is an excellent opportunity for 21st-century fans of British literature to embrace one of its most unjustly forgotten authors.

The Book of the Duke of True Lovers: One of Christine de Pisan’s works of romantic fiction, The Book of the Duke of True Lovers is believed to be semibiographical. There are only two original manuscripts, one belonging to the house of Bourbon, and it is believed that Jean, Duc de Bourbon, is the protagonist here, the Duke of True Lovers himself. Through Christine, the Duke tells his story of courtly love and adventure. He and his love, the unnamed Duchess, are often separated, communicating by love letters and walking a very fine line between acceptable conduct and dishonor. Anyone with an interest in medieval literature will find this book a superb example of the genre.

And for those of you who like their romance with a gothic flavor, try…

The Mysteries of Udolpho, A Romance: Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry: Sir Walter Scott esteemed her “the first poetess of romantic fiction.” Jane Austen borrowed prodigiously from her — and sent up the steamy overwroughtness of her writing — in Northanger Abbey. British author Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) pioneered the Gothic romance as popular fiction with her 1789 debut novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, and went on to wild success with further works of demure heroines lost in the perils of supernatural melodrama. In this 1794 thriller, perhaps the quintessential example of the genre and Radcliffe’s most popular work, the young and beautiful orphan Emily St. Aubert is imprisoned at sinister Castle Udolpho, and suffers frustrated romance and the hauntings of ghosts. A vital example of early horror and later a profound influence on pulp fiction, this is essential reading for both fans of the genre and those interested in its psychological and thematic development.