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What is love? The question is asked by each of us, but the answer remains elusive. Dictionaries summon up many words, but none fulfill. Love itself is often ethereal, felt but only seen in a glance, a look, a fleeting touch. Part of love’s beauty is perhaps in the fact that the question never can be adequately answered; it's ephemeral, a chimera of the heart and only felt. Our own experiences are unique and personal to ourselves and of little help defining it for another. Love is perhaps best expressed through poetry.

Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1st 1819, the third of eight children. At the age of seven, Melville contracted scarlet fever which was to permanently diminish his eyesight. At this time Melville was described as being 'very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension.' His father died when he was 12, leaving the family in very straitened times. Just 14, Melville took a job in a bank paying $150 a year that he obtained via his uncle Peter Gansevoort, who was one of the directors of the New York State Bank.

The human form is familiar to all of us. We like limbs connected to bodies. Writers of the dark and macabre are not too concerned if that remains the case. Indeed limbs, or rather pieces of the body, sometimes are best written about when not connected. It’s one of our greatest fears. It quite rightly riddles us with a very unsettling feeling. So why then do we turn the page? We’re about to find out.

London’s East End has over the centuries been a magnet for immigration, innovation, culture, crime and a vast spectrum of other things. It is often seen as both part of and yet very distinct from the vast metropolis of London. Today it has been transformed from the often grimy, derelict and overcrowded area, that many of these stories describe, into a landscape of gentrification, sleek and shiny buildings and a booming economy. But here such noted talents as Arthur Morrison, Henry W. Nevinson, William Pett Ridge and Thomas Burke show the East End as it really was.

The problem with the dark is you don’t really know what’s lurking in there. Something hiding? Something menacing? Or just an inky dome for the stars to twinkle on? Writers rarely let us dwell on the latter. No, they would much rather they put our nerves on edge, that our skin would begin to crawl and that the cold sweat of fear propels our pulse and heartbeat to nightmare-inducing trauma. I think they’re ready.

The ships of Europe explore the globe. The Age of Mercantilism sets the stage for centuries to come. The Reformation is underway, and scientific thinking begins to challenge the Church even as nation falls upon nation. In the Americas and Asia, ancient empires clash. Cultures resonate and express themselves with the fruit of the Ottoman, Safavid, Moghul and Chinese expansion. In England, the Elizabethan age of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne, Jonson and Spenser dawns.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford upon Avon in late April 1565. He was one of eight children. Little is known about his life, but what is evident is the enormous contribution he has made to world literature. His writing was progressive, magnificent in scope and breathtaking in execution. His plays and sonnets helped enable the English language to speak with a voice unmatched by any other. William Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, survived by his wife and two daughters. He was buried two days after his death in the chancel of the Holy Trinity church.

Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5th, 1850 near Dieppe in France. Maupassant’s early life was badly torn when at age 11 (his younger brother Hervé was then five) his mother, Laure, a headstrong and independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace in order to obtain a legal separation from her husband. After the separation, Laure kept custody of her two boys. With the father now forcibly absent, Laure became the most influential and important figure in the young boy's life.

Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 in Northampton, England. Her parents' position allowed them to educate Anne across many subjects, which was unusual for its day. She married and had eight children. She and her family emigrated to America, where they moved often from place to place. She wrote some beautiful poetry in 1650; the publication of her collection of verse The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America made her the first female poet ever published in England and the New World.

English law is a pinnacle of human society. The phrase 'Be you ever so high the law is above you' inspires us all to believe that before it all are treated equally. But in the imposing wood-panelled courts, in front of the beady eyes of wig-decked judge, delivering justice tempered with mercy, our vision twists and falls prey to the mind.

John Galsworthy was born in Kingston Upon Thames in Surrey, on August 14th 1867. The family was wealthy and well established. John was schooled at Harrow and New College, Oxford, before training as a barrister. But law was not for him. Galsworthy first published in 1897 with a collection of short stories entitled The Four Winds. Initially he published as John Sinjohn, but after the death of his father in 1904 he published as John Galsworthy. Much of his early work was as plays for which he dealt with social issues and the class system.

Saying sorry is in crisis. On one hand, there are anxious PR aficionados and social media teams dishing out apologies with alarming frequency. On the other hand, there are people and organizations who have done truly terrible things issuing much-delayed statements of mild regret. We have become addicted to apologies but immune from saying sorry. The Apology Impulse is the perfect playbook for anyone - from social media executive to online influencers and CEOs - who apologize way too much or say sorry far too infrequently!  

Francis Marion Crawford, an only child, was born on 2nd August 1854 at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. He was a nephew to Julia Ward Howe, the American poet and writer of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Crawford was educated at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, and then on to Cambridge University, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Rome. In 1879, he went to India, to study Sanskrit and then to edit The Indian Herald. In 1881, he returned to America to continue his Sanskrit studies at Harvard University.

There is a day in March when people of Irish descent, in whole or part, and those who just wish to partake of the Shamrock Isle’s legendary hospitality, come together the world over to celebrate the world’s most popular national festival: St Patrick’s day. That day is March 17th, the traditional anniversary of his death in 561. Saint Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and is acknowledged as the one who brought Christianity to its shores and drove out the snakes.

The beautiful island of Ireland has endured a history that is pock-marked with struggle and oppression, with religious division and self-serving administrations. It has sacrificed its youth in wars, its generations in famines and emigration, but it has never forsaken its calling that Ireland is a beacon of dignity, humanity and a home for words and literature of every description. Across the centuries, whatever its joys or torments, its poets have assembled verse that speaks from its soul.

The most enduring and popular theme of poems and poets is that of love. Love changes; its rhythms pause and pulse on the tiniest of things and the biggest of thrills. Within its shades all other feelings, all other emotions, gently reside, waiting for their moment. In these 50 poems, the many, many shades of love reveal themselves.

Sleep. That most mysterious of times. The unconscious hours. Everyone needs it. Sleep offers a respite from the rigors and challenges of the day - a chance for the brain to process what has happened and bring rest and recuperation before the cycle of daytime activity begins again. Our poets, from Kipling and Swinburne through Hafiz, James Joyce, Edgar Allan Poe and a pillowful of others, explore the wish to rest, to close the eyes and reside in the land of nod.

Here, in this volume history’s greatest poets convey thoughts, feelings and sentiments of love to you in quick (or bite-size) conversations of verse that can slip into your day and your partner's heart.

Here, in this volume history’s greatest poets convey thoughts, feelings and sentiments of love to you in quick (or bite-size) conversations of verse that can slip into your day and your partner's heart.

Here, in this volume history’s greatest poets convey thoughts, feelings and sentiments of love to you in quick (or bite-size) conversations of verse that can slip into your day and your partner's heart.