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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.

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.

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.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on October 21st, 1772, in Ottery St Mary in Devon. As a child he was an early and devoted reader, and after being schooled at Christ's Hospital, a charity school, he attended, from 1791, Jesus College, Cambridge, and the following year won the Browne Gold Medal for an ode on the slave trade. This volume comes to you from Portable Poetry, a specialised imprint from Deadtree Publishing. Our range is large and growing and covers single poets, themes, and many compilations.

Night. The day has gone. Departed. And the dark embrace, the inky shadows of night descend. For many a time to unwind and slumber. For some a nagging doubt that all is not well. That some primeval and primordial happening may yet go bump in the night. But for our poets the night is a time of wonder and imagination as well as many other emotions and feelings. Among our ranks of gloried talents are Keats, Coleridge, William Morris, DH Lawrence, Whitman, Longfellow and many more besides. Their descriptions capture what they see and feel as perhaps only a poet can.

The Graveyard Poets, also known as 'Churchyard Poets' or 'the Boneyard Boys' began in pre-Romantic days with a leaning towards gloom, melancholy and the general decay of churchyards. It should be remembered that in the 18th century city graveyards were a teeming mass of overcrowding and disease, their country brethren better but hardly idylls of worship. What would eventually lead to the Gothic literary genre began, in the main, with reflections by Christian clergymen upon God, mortality and the assumed afterlife.

Milton was to now publish his greatest works, which had been gestating for many years. Paradise Lost, perhaps the classic English epic poem was originally published in 10 books in 1667. This was followed by Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes in 1671. Because of his anti-monarchy views their reception was muted, but over the centuries since, Milton has established himself as second only to Shakespeare. He died of kidney failure on November 8th, 1674, and was buried in the church of St Giles Cripplegate.

John Donne was born on 22nd January 1572 in London into a Roman Catholic family when Catholicism was illegal in England and there was turbulence and unrest with both state and church throughout much of Europe. His father, also named John, died when he was four, and his mother, Elizabeth Heywood, married a wealthy widower, ensuring the family were looked after. He received a good education in both Oxford and Cambridge but was unable to obtain a degree without taking the Oath of Supremacy, which as a Catholic he refused to do.

Michael Drayton was born in 1563 at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. The facts of his early life remain unknown. Drayton first published, in 1590, a volume of spiritual poems: The Harmony of the Church. Ironically the Archbishop of Canterbury seized almost the entire edition and had it destroyed. In 1593 he published Idea: The Shepherd's Garland, nine pastorals celebrating his own love-sorrows under the poetic name of Rowland. This was later expanded to a 64-sonnet cycle.

The sun has descended below the far horizon. The inky blackness of night begins to envelop the land. Day has gone, and the nocturnal times reveal themselves. But above the dark blanket the moon, whether waxing or waning, stands sentry, and around it vast clouds and swirls of stars regiment themselves. We look up in awe and wonder, frail beneath their vista. Our gloried poets are on hand, though, to capture word and deed, emotion and feeling, friend and foe.

When the wind blows and the rain lashes, our emotions can become dulled and our thoughts depressed but sometimes these swirling conditions can excite and invigorate. Whether we shut the door physically or delight in watching nature's displays, we cannot ignore the weather. It’s the natural topic of conversation for the British. Summer breezes and spring showers can elevate our senses, bringing a thump to the heart, a grin to the face and an abandon to immerse yourself in nature's ever changing wonders.

zNevinson was schooled at Shrewsbury School and at Christ Church, Oxford. John Ruskin influenced his time at Oxford. Fascinated by German Culture he spent some time at Jena before publishing, in 1884, Herder & His Times, a study of Johnann Gottfried Herder. In 1897 he became the Daily Chronicle's reporter for the Greco-Turkish War. He was also noted for his reporting on the Second Boer War. During the 1880s Nevinson had attached his politics to Socialism and by 1889 had joined the Social Democratic Federation.

Art. The greatest standard bearer of what the human condition really is? Or emperor’s clothes, cheap gimmicks displayed as all-knowing? When it comes to writing we have our favourite authors. But what of the authors themselves? What are they keen to write of? For our classic authors, from Poe to Lovecraft, from Woolf to Fitzgerald, art in their words is something to be admired. From many angles, many views, their stories, their characters interact with art, and the consequences fall as they may.

The human race prides itself on being the most organised of animals. We manage the fate of all other species. All other animals bow to our control or suffer. In diminishing numbers we allow some to live in the wild, but in increasing numbers we domesticate them, and whether they become part of the family, a best friend or wonderfully decorative accessory, we take their compliance for granted.

The human race prides itself on being the most organised of animals. We manage the fate of all other species. All other animals bow to our control or suffer. In diminishing numbers we allow some to live in the wild, but in increasing numbers we domesticate them, and whether they become part of the family, a best friend or a wonderfully decorative accessory, we take their compliance for granted.

We love control. The ability to predict and organise our lives as we want them. As we desire them. It’s quite a shock, then, when phantoms, ghouls and ghosts play their part, too. They don’t play by our rules. Our welfare is not their concern. They will do as they wish. And they have very vivid imaginations - way beyond the dictionary definition: Phantom. Noun. Something apparently seen, heard or sensed but having no physical reality. An image that appears only in the mind; an illusion. A model, especially a transparent one, of the human body or of any of its parts.

At some point in our lives we believe that creak, that low moan, that whisper is something unnatural, beyond our comprehension. And in these stories our instincts are right. We are afraid. And we should be. Perhaps even terrified. In this volume our classic authors take different approaches, but the result is inevitably the same. We are hooked by these unknowable forces, our emotions heightened and rattled by the expectation - or shock - of the next few words.

We are captivated by colour. It seeps into our emotions, our vistas. It’s part of everyday life. Sometimes its part of something much darker. Our eminent authors in this volume bring you colours of every shade. From the terror of HP Lovecraft and the shadowed world of Edith Nesbit to the wordplay of Virginia Woolf - as well as many others. Color in all its light and shades, hues and tints is brought to the fore by these exceptional writers.

We sit. We lie. We wait. We are examined. We are left alone. Emotions fritter. The door reopens. The face. Is it tinged with sadness or reassuring and open? The words. Are they easy to comprehend? Is it good news or bad? We can answer that. It’s bad. Undeniably bad. None of our authors have good news for you. The diagnosis? You already know that. Death.

Our greatest fears are of the unknown. Usually we think those fears are in front of us...or behind us. But perhaps the human body itself holds the greatest horror. What happens after death? Do our bodies have a new existence either in whole...or part? Will others seek to claim them and do unspeakable things? We don’t know. But our authors do. And they have the talents and wits to make these diabolical stories vehicles for horror, for terror, for the unimaginable....