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Along the centuries numerous interpretations and definitions of Sufism have waxed and waned but the undeniable beauty of their verse in its myriad of forms including the musical Ghazal (love song), Masnavi (narrative) and Rubai (quatrain) always remains. Our chronological volume of the classic Sufi poets helps us understand the spiritual direction of Sufism, starting with Rabia in the 8th century through to Khwaja Ghulam Farid over a thousand years later.

Kabir, meaning "Great" and one of the 99 names of God in Arabic, was a mystic and poet, born around 1440 in Varanasi to poor Muslim parents. Another account claims he was the child of a Brahmin widow. He himself said he was "at once the child of Allah and Ram". Kabir grew up learning his father’s craft of weaving and overcame many obstacles to become a disciple of Saint, or Swami, Ramananda, the leading pioneer of the Bhakti movement, which promoted salvation for all.

Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5th, 1850, near Dieppe in France. In 1880 he published what is considered his first great work, ‘Boule de Suif’, (translated as as ‘Dumpling’, ‘Butterball’, ‘Ball of Fat’, or ‘Ball of Lard’), which met with a success that was both instant and overwhelming. Flaubert at once acknowledged that it was ‘a masterpiece that will endure.’ Maupassant had used his talents and experiences in the war to create something unique.

Whilst Europe endured the Dark Ages in the 6th & 7th Centuries, devotees of Shiva and Vishnu in Southern India were creating the Bhakti Movement. Some of these exponents, as in our volume, were bestowed with the title of saint but some had the additional title of sant, swami or goswami. Broadly speaking, Bhakti poetry, as in Hinduism itself, is divided into ‘Nirguna’, the idea that the divine is formless as exampled by Kabir and ‘Saguna’, which interprets the divine as having physical form as captured by Mirabai.

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.

One of the greatest of English poets, Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London, in 1552 and went to school at Merchant Taylors' School and later at Pembroke College, Cambridge. In 1579, he published The Shepheardes Calender, his first major work. Edmund journeyed to Ireland in July 1580, in the service of the newly appointed Lord Deputy, Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton. His time included the terrible massacre at the Siege of Smerwick. The epic poem The Faerie Queene is acknowledged as Edmund’s masterpiece.

William Wordsworth was born on the 7th of April, 1770 and is rightly regarded as a major English poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature. His words have been proffered by many a tongue around the world. They stir, they inspire they create lyrical pictures and feelings as few others can. Wordsworth's was also Britain's Poet Laureate from his appointment by Queen Victoria in 1843 until his death in on the 23rd of April 1850.

Written by Rudyard Kipling, the popular British Victorian writer, these origin stories are fantasized tales written with a delightful sense of whimsy that charms adults and children alike. These excellent readings by Ghizela Rowe & Tim Graham make it abundantly clear why they have become such special classics that continue to tantalize and excite the imagination.

The ballad is one of the oldest poetic forms in English and are simply poems or songs that tell a story. Maybe it’s because of childhood associations or that we all enjoy a cracking good story told in rhyme but as this volume demonstrates, the ballad has endless appeal. We include favourites such as Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s The Ballad of the Harp Weaver, Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee as well as classics such as Sir Patrick Spens, the Ballad of Reading Gaol by Wilde and La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Keats.

Love whether fleeting or of the ages, expressed with a look, a touch, or a thought is wanted by us all. Our classic poets did not surrender to the logic of the group or seek advice from others quick to blame but slow to embrace. Their legacy remains because it is true, because in that look, that touch, that thought, that display of words the heart remembers us and treasures us. Here are words and verse of love. For your ears, your loved one’s ears and hearts everywhere.

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.

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.

This collection of short stories contains several gothic tales to bear macabre and chilling witness to writers as diverse as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, and Edith Nesbit. These tales are designed to unsettle you, just a little, while you sit back and take in their words as they lead you on a walk to places you’d perhaps rather not visit on your own. Our stories are "The Wedding Knell" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Old Nurse's Story" by Elizabeth Gaskell, and more.

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.

Keats. A short life but a legacy of works that few, if any, can rival. And of course his end was to be tragically Romantic. Keats was returning one night to his home in Hampstead when he coughed. He coughed a single drop of blue blood upon his hand and said, ‘I know the colour of that blood, it is arterial blood, it is my death warrant, I must die’. And so it was that tuberculosis took its slow, devastating hold.

The Poetry of Kissing. In many ways the title says it all. Kissing is Poetry. The kiss is perhaps the most loving and intimate moment there is. It is amongst our most soothing and treasured memories. This volume is not about the kiss of a mother’s to her child’s scraped knee, or the father to his baby’s head as he settles down to sleep. No, when the poets here talk of the kiss, they describe the longing and desire, the want and hunger to be part of something that so connects them to another.

In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Virginia Woolf. Adeline Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 and was to become a founder of modernist writing. Her background is filled with elements of tragedy that she somehow overcame to become a revered writer. Her mother died when she was 13, her half sister Stella two years later and with that came her first of several nervous breakdowns.

Sometimes we just want the best. But that involves choices, judgements, decisions. And that all depends on our feelings, our mood at the time. Even more so with poetry. Would we like a little more pathos, or love, or humour with that? Can we only choose one Keats? And ’If’? Surely Kipling wrote something else? So difficult to decide. This one or that? Is it easier to choose your 50 favourite poets or your 50 favourite poems?

The great author of Vanity Fair and The Luck Of Barry Lyndon was born in India in 1811. At age 5 his father died and his mother sent him back to England. His education was of the best but he himself seemed unable to apply his talents to a rigorous work ethic. However, once he harnessed his talents the works flowed in novels, articles, short stories, sketches and lectures.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born on the 30th August 1797 in Somers Town, London. Her mother, the famous feminist philosopher, educator, and writer Mary Wollstonecraft died when Mary was only 11 days old and she was raised by her father. Her short stories, some based in Europe, tackle difficult situations and genres as well the obstacles that women were burdened with in society. Her editorship of her late husband’s poetry was also widely praised.