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Across fifty poems our classic poets including Christina Georgina Rossetti, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Thomas Hardy & Dante Gabriel Rossetti find verse and tender words to match the occasion. Their descriptions of nature’s ever-evolving landscape and humanity’s ever-changing lives emblazon the page with the lively ink that shapes us all.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller was born on 10th November 1759, in Marbach, Württemberg, the sole son of six children, into a very religious family. Although primarily admired for his plays Schiller also wrote histories, poetry and some notable translations. In his short story ‘The Criminal from Lost Honour’ the layers of a man’s life are examined as perhaps only Schiller and his literary genius can.

The Irish Short Story tradition is packed with literary leviathans who take the raw ingredients of the land, it’s people and their own talents to create quite dazzling narratives in these perfectly pitched short stories. Genius has many names.

Many authors have been cited as inventing the detective genre. Perhaps the strongest claimant is the American Edgar Allan Poe. His creation of the Parisian sleuth C. Auguste Dupin with his quite astounding analysis and deductive powers allied to Poe’s great imagination and wit create a literary tour de force.

Hector Hugh Munro, more familiarly known by his pen-name ‘Saki’, was born in what was then Akyab in British Burma on 18th December 1870. His father was an Inspector General for the Indian Imperial Police, and his mother the daughter of a Rear Admiral. After a stint working in Burma with the Indian Imperial Police, Saki decided to move to London to make a living as a writer. Initially he wrote as a journalist for a number of newspapers and magazines before attempting an historical study, ‘The Rise of the Russian Empire’, whose real value lay in directing him to writing short stories instead.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. Hawthorne’s short stories were first published in magazines but in 1837 were collected and published as ‘Twice-Told Tales’. A steady literary career still did not come his way and so he worked in a good position at Salem’s port and married the love of his life, Sophia Peabody. They moved to live in ‘The Old Manse’ at Concord, Massachusetts.

In this collection we rely on the words and wisdom of such fine poets as John Milton, Emily Dickinson, Sir Walter Scott, Daniel Sheehan, Wordsworth, Longfellow and a whole host of others to absorb us in a Christmas time of hope and togetherness set amongst a landscape of winter wonderment and Nature’s palest palette. The experiences and memories they share with us speak of a time, of a world, that did have a common purpose and an ambition to share good fortune with everyone.

Angels are undeniably associated with religion and more usually Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Often they are seen as supernatural beings, benevolent celestial intermediaries interposed between God, Heaven and humanity. Obviously there are complications, a fact that our classic poets through the centuries, including Alexander Pope, Edmund Spenser, Radclyffe Hall and Hafiz, use as they write verse to explain, to reveal and to help us understand exactly why Angels are so prevalent amongst our thoughts.

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.

Mirabai was a Rajput princess born to the Rathore clan in 1498 in Kudaki, Rajasthan, in northern India. Despite being one of the most significant saints in the Bhakti tradition and an immensely popular Hindu mystic and religious poet, very few facts are actually known about her life including her date of birth. It is clear that her mother died when she was very young and she was greatly influenced by her father, also a worshipper of Krishna. From a young age, Mirabai’s devotion to Krishna was absolute surrender and complete devotion.

Anne Kingsmill was born in April 1661 (an exact date is not known) in Sydmonton, Hampshire. Throughout her life, Anne was involved in several Court cases that dragged on for years. These involved both a share of her parent’s estate for her education and later her and her husband’s share of an inheritance. In 1682, Anne became a maid of honour to Mary of Modena (wife of James, Duke of York, and later King James II) at St James’ Palace. Anne's interest in poetry began at the palace, and she started writing her own verse.

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19th, 1809, and was orphaned at an early age. Taken in by the Allan family, his education was cut short by lack of money, and he went to the military academy West Point where he failed to become an officer. His early literary works were poetic, but he quickly turned to prose. He worked for several magazines and journals until in January 1845, The Raven was published and became an instant classic.

Stephen Crane was born 1st November 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, and was the eighth surviving child out of 14. Incredibly, he began writing at the age of four and was published several times by the age of 16. Crane only began a full-time education when he was nine but quickly mastered the grades needed to catch up and move forward. Although educated at Lafayette and Syracuse, he had little interest in completing university and was keener to move on to a career, declaring college to be ‘a waste of time’.

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.