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In this volume the English language reveals itself in a scale and depth that few others can compare with. It seems to be an advantage to be able to choose from over a million words and yet, it is not the words but the way in which they are used that resonate with us all. Is there some bond between the English and writing poetry? Maybe, maybe not, but let us celebrate these poems down the ages, not as one nation’s hoard but humanity’s gift.

The fifth novel in the Chronicles of Barsetshire, The Small House at Allington, concerns the lives of the two Dale girls, Lily and Bell, who live at the Small House. While Bell is in love with the local doctor James Crofts, Lily is pursued by two men: the worldly, rich and handsome Adolphus Crosbie and the poor but honest Johnny Eames. With each determined to gain her hand in marriage, who will she choose?

Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the Russian province of Tula to a wealthy noble family. As a child, he had private tutors but he showed little interest in any formal education. When he went to the University of Kazan in 1843 to study oriental languages and law, he left without completing his courses. Life now was relaxed and idle but with some writing also taking place. In 1852 ‘Childhood’ was published to immediate success and was followed by ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Youth’. His experience in the army and the horrors he witnessed resulted in ‘The Cossacks’ in 1862 and the trilogy ‘Sevastopol Tales’.

Edward Alexander Crowley was born on 12th October 1875 to wealthy parents in Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. Life for Crowley was to abandon his parents’ Christian faith and instead to inject himself into Western esotericism. In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and was trained in ceremonial magic before studying both Hindu and Buddhist practices in India. His literary works were both prolific and covered many topics. In the early part of his career he published many poetry books, even plays, before his darker and more forceful works.

John William Polidori was born on 7th September 1795, in London, to Gaetano Polidori. In 1816 Dr Polidori was given the job of Byron’s personal physician and accompanied him on a trip through Europe. The publisher John Murray offered Polidori £500 to keep a diary of their travels. At the Villa Diodati, Byron’s rented villa at Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the pair met with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont.

In The Last Chronicle of Barset, Trollope concludes his saga of ecclesiastical life. At the heart of the novel is the plight of Josiah Crawley, a proud, impoverished clergyman who faces difficult legal circumstances. Caught amid poverty, Josiah appears to have stolen a check and is forced to stand trial - despite the fact that he cannot remember its origins. To make matters worse, his daughter, Grace, desperately seeks the approval of Archdeacon Grantly, whose son she intends to marry.

In this volume we gather together verse from lesbian poets that is deeply personal and at times overwhelming. It is not just a search for physical love but a journey through the spiritual to completeness, to becoming whole. However we recognise that the label lesbian might be anachronistic and so also include those who stand by their sides or who have a view in verse that helps us to revel in their love. For in the end that is all our journey is about.

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.

This invaluable, easy-to-understand guide to world politics and government offers an accessible introduction to more than 80 of the most important theories and big ideas of leaders and politicians throughout history. The Politics Book makes government and politics easy to understand by explaining the big ideas simply. The key events in political history are outlined from the origins of political thinking by Confucius and Aristotle to modern-day activists such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela.

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society. In this volume we offer up a small selection of talents whose time has now come again.

Perhaps England's greatest literary family. To find one brilliant novelist in a family is extremely rare. But two? Three?

The Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily Jane and Anne, together with their brother Patrick, are famed throughout the world. And amongst their many talents was poetry. Of course, being Brontë's, they were rather good at that too.

Ryūnosuke Niihara was born in Kyōbashi, Tokyo in Japan on the 1st March 1892. Sadly, his mother suffered severe mental illness after his birth and so, at only eight months old, he was sent to be raised by his maternal uncle and aunt, from whom he received the Akutagawa family name. Akutagawa published "Rashōmon" in 1915 and whilst it was disliked by his friends everyone else knew better. As other short stories followed so did his growing literary reputation as the father of the Japanese short story.

Edward Alexander Crowley was born on 12th October 1875 to wealthy parents in Royal Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. His literary works were both prolific and covered many topics. In the early part of his career he published many poetry books, even plays, before his darker and more forceful works came to dominate his output.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16 October 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. The son of Dublin intellectuals, Oscar proved himself an outstanding classicist at Trinity College and then at Oxford. Wilde then moved to London and its fashionable cultural and social circles. With his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the most well-known personalities of his day.

The name H H Munro is obscured beneath the literary mantle of his nom de plume; Saki. A writer of his times, the stories perfectly portray society’s whims and tastes in a delicate yet at times, barbed humour. A divine wit who conjured words into quite extraordinary works. Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

In this volume your flesh may creep and crawl a little bit as our classic authors delve into the world of vampires. Some stories you may be familiar with but for most these will be new and unsettling experiences.

Visible Gods is an imaginary dialogue between Socrates and four fictitious modern-day characters. Socrates' worldview is of a living cosmos with man only half-way up the hierarchy of all beings; above him reign suprahuman beings of great majesty and power - the visible gods. The moderns with whom Socrates converses disdain his ancient Greek cosmos as primitive and false.

The great explorers were the celebrities of their day - the romance and danger of their daring expeditions captured the public imagination and the world's headlines to an extraordinary degree. Not all of them lived to tell the tale, of course, but those who emerged triumphant from jungle, desert, or polar wasteland were hailed as if returning from beyond the grave. Journalists vied for their stories and publishers rushed their firsthand accounts of exciting and dangerous journeys into print for a wide and voracious readership.

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society. In this volume we offer up a small selection of talents from the literary landscape of Continental Europe and its male authors whose time has now come again.