Showing results by narrator "Mitchley Richard" in All Categories

Rupert Chawner Brooke was born at 5 Hillmorton Road, Rugby, Warwickshire, on 3rd August 1887, the third of four children. Brooke attended preparatory school nearby at Hillbrow and then went on to Rugby School. In 1905, he became friends with St. John Lucas, who thereafter became something of a mentor to him. While travelling in Europe he worked on a thesis, 'John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama', which won him a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge.

The short stories written during and about World War I are often overshadowed by the excellent verse of the War Poets. Yet the short story is perhaps their equal in other ways. Within these succinct little time capsules of words are captured ideas, attitudes, feelings and life that are expressed in a few minutes just as movingly, imaginatively and tellingly as in any other form. Some of these stories will be familiar, but some may not. From Virginia Woolf to Katharine Mansfield and John Buchan to C. E. Montague, various writing styles try to make sense of this world at war.

Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett was born on 6 March 1806, in Coxhoe Hall, County Durham, the eldest of 12 children. The family's wealth was derived from sugar plantations manned by slaves in Jamaica and enabling them to also purchase a 500-acre estate in Herefordshire. This wealth allowed her to publish poems from an early age. However by age 20 the family’s fortunes were to decline, but never below comfortable, after losing a lawsuit over their plantations.

For much of history women have been seen rather than heard. Their thoughts, their views, have lain too long in the shadows of our culture. Whilst this traditional view has some merit it is not entirely accurate. Here, gathered together in these volumes, we can, through their words, experience their lives; we can hear their voices, their thoughts, joys, loves and losses. For the female poet there was always the confining hand of men to instruct that their time was perhaps spent more productively elsewhere.

The office of Poet Laureate is a high honour amongst poets. The ancient Greeks had the first idea, and their heroes and poets wore wreaths of laurel in honour of the god Apollo. Many countries now have a laureate, as do many societies and organisations. But perhaps ranked first among them all is that of our own Poet Laureate. Unfortunately no single authentic definitive record exists of the office of Poet Laureate of England. In some form it can be traced back to 1189 and Richard Canonicus, who was employed by Richard I with the title 'versificator Regis'.

For the female poet there was always the confining hand of men to instruct that their time was perhaps spent more productively elsewhere. These lines, these gilded verses often protest otherwise. The contribution of women in these earlier centuries is immense, and in this series we bring together poets who have created some of the most beautiful and expressive verses ever written. And remember these words, these telling lines, have been written against the grain of society's male bias. With their remembered words these female poets have given us a history that we can all now share.

October - the tenth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar, and the land prepares to give up more it its colourful coverings. On this and other themes, our poets, including Wordsworth, Rossetti, Arnold, Bryant, and Alford, have much to say.

Strictly speaking The Lake Poets were not a movement or school of poetry. They were only so named as such by The Edinburgh Review so that they could be disparaged. It was a spectacular backfire! The three main figures would be rightly seen as among the most monumental figures in English poetry - William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the underrated but immense Robert Southey, himself a 30-year poet laureate.

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born on the 1st April 1875 in Greenwich, London. Leaving school at 12 because of truancy, by the age of 15 he had experience selling newspapers, as a worker in a rubber factory, as a shoe shop assistant, as a milk delivery boy and as a ship’s cook. By 1894 he was engaged but broke it off to join the infantry; he was posted to South Africa. He also changed his name to Edgar Wallace, which he took from Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur. In Cape Town in 1898 he met Rudyard Kipling and was inspired to begin writing.

The Caroline era was dominated by the growing religious, political and social conflict between the King and his supporters; the Royalists and it's Puritan opposition; the Roundheads. In contrast to the wars raging across Europe at the time, the Caroline period in Britain was an uneasy peace, as a dark shadow of civil conflict between the King and Parliament worsened toward the latter part of Charles’ reign. Whilst theatre unquestionably fell from its glittering peak achievements of William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, in poetry the standard was perhaps only just shy of this bar.

In 1274, Edward the First ruled England having inherited the crown from his father, Henry the Third. Across the border to the west, the smaller country of Wales was ruled by Prince Llewellyn ap Gruffydd, a direct descendant of Llewellyn the Great. Tensions were strained between the two countries and minor conflicts were commonplace between the lesser nobles, but when Edward found out about Llewellyn’s proposed marriage to Eleanor du Montfort, he was incensed, and in 1275, arranged for her ship to be intercepted as she travelled from France to be with the Welsh prince.

In the war a great volume of poetry was written, produced and published in books, periodicals, newspapers or letters back to home. We often think of war as a necessity. We fight for a more just and better world. We often fail. But in our poets we gain a truth and a morality that shocks us, consoles us and holds our values to the light. In this volume we hear poems from the front, from home, from soldiers, from auxiliaries, from friend and from foe.

In this volume of fifty poems our classic poets delve with storied verse into every facet of this institution. From the good, the bad and even the ugly, from the Wedding day to the realisation that divorce and separation maybe the better path. Between these two frontiers other avenues and facets are explored by the pens of many including Shakespeare, Khalil Gibran, Emily Dickinson and the Rossetti’s.

How do some political leaders capture popular support? What is the appeal of belonging to a nation? Can democracy thrive? The Psychology of Politics explores how the emotions which underpin everyday life are also vital in what happens on the political stage. It draws on psychoanalytic ideas to show how fear and passion shape the political sphere in our changing societies and cultures, and examines topical social issues and events including Brexit, the changing nature of democracy, activism, and Trump in America.

David Herbert Lawrence was born on the 11th September 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, a coal mining town where the reality of a harsh life was only useful as experiences for future literary works. Lawrence’s first efforts were poems, short stories and a draft of ‘The White Peacock’. Moving to London and a teaching position in Croydon his writing attracted the attention of Ford Madox Ford, editor of The English Review, and he commissioned him to write ‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’.

In this volume of classic poetry our wordsmiths are our companions on journeys near and far. They describe and create worlds that we can explore with them, word by word and line by line. In the company of Keats, Wordsworth, Bronte, Whitman, Kipling and a wealth of others these journeys in verse will be like no other.

This proud nation with its long history - sometimes rough, hewn from bleak landscapes, and sometimes gently soft from its comforting voices - has produced a long succession of artists and poets.

In the latter category, Louis MacNeice most probably stands pre-eminent; his words and phrasing are on a plane few can equal and most are in awe of. But in this volume we do put forward others who have their own words and voice to add to this rich tapestry.

Summer 2006, Afghanistan: an apparently deserted village, and a rapidly ticking clock... The relentless Taliban ambush which followed saw several British soldiers dead, two armoured vehicles destroyed - and Corporal of Horse Michael Flynn awarded an MC to go alongside his Conspicuous Gallantry Cross. Mick Flynn has never backed away from a challenge.

Talent bursts from this decade with astonishing ease. From America across Europe to Russia each and every story is an indelible mark of story-telling flecked with genius that enthralls us all. Whatever their chosen genre their stories break new ground, cover new topics and carry a legacy that cannot be disputed.

Poetry is often cited as our greatest use of words. The English language has well over a million of them and poets down the ages seem, at times, to make use of every single one. But often they use them in simple ways to describe anything and everything from landscapes to all aspects of the human condition. Poems can evoke within us an individual response that takes us by surprise; that opens our ears and eyes to very personal feelings.