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What is love? The question is asked by each of us, but the answer remains elusive. Dictionaries summon up many words, but none fulfill. Love itself is often ethereal, felt but only seen in a glance, a look, a fleeting touch. Part of love’s beauty is perhaps in the fact that the question never can be adequately answered; it's ephemeral, a chimera of the heart and only felt. Our own experiences are unique and personal to ourselves and of little help defining it for another. Love is perhaps best expressed through poetry.

The question is asked by each of us, but the answer remains elusive. Dictionaries summon up many words, but none fulfill. Love itself is often ethereal, felt but only seen in a glance, a look, a fleeting touch. Part of love’s beauty is perhaps in the fact that the question never can be adequately answered; it's ephemeral, a chimera of the heart and only felt. Our own experiences are unique and personal to ourselves and of little help defining it for another.

The office of Poet Laureate goes back many centuries - informally to the time of Geoffrey Chaucer in 1389 and followed thereafter by a number of ‘volunteer laureates’. It was formally assigned to Ben Jonson in 1617 and, as a Royal office by letters patent in 1670, to John Dryden. It is a rich, rewarding history that bursts with the words, themes and visions of many great poets that has bound poetry and poets to a nation's soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts on 25th May 1803, the son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister. Emerson was the second of five sons who survived into adulthood. His father died before Emerson was eight, and the young boy was raised by his mother and other female members of the family. Emerson's formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812 when he was nine. In October 1817 at 14, Emerson went to Harvard College.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was born on 27th June 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. His parents had been slaves in Kentucky before the Civil War. Dunbar wrote his first poem at age six and gave his first public recital at age nine. By 16, he was already published as a poet in The Herald, a local newspaper. After completing his formal schooling in 1891, Dunbar was employed as an elevator operator, at four dollars a week. His hopes of a legal career floundered on a lack of funds and racial discrimination. However, he wrote his poetry and took every opportunity to publish.

James Weldon Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Florida, on 17th June 1871. His mother, Helen, a musician and a public school teacher, initially home-schooled him, giving him a love of both English literature and European music. At 16, his education moved to Atlanta University, and he graduated with a degree in 1894. In 1904 Johnson helped in Theodore Roosevelt's presidential bid. On winning, Roosevelt appointed him as US consul at Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, in 1906 and then Nicaragua from 1909.

Today perhaps we all agree that youth is spoilt, ill-disciplined and in search of constant and instant gratification. No matter how much we love them, our children, as they mature from child to youth, are pampered. A century ago, and even further back, even the most privileged of youth was rarely indulged. In this volume we look at those years of youth through the eyes and pens of classic poets. They reveal times of hardship, of fear, of love and loss.

Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1st 1819, the third of eight children. At the age of seven, Melville contracted scarlet fever which was to permanently diminish his eyesight. At this time Melville was described as being 'very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension.' His father died when he was 12, leaving the family in very straitened times. Just 14, Melville took a job in a bank paying $150 a year that he obtained via his uncle Peter Gansevoort, who was one of the directors of the New York State Bank.

An essential for life. Without it life is impossible. Was it always that way? In this volume of stories, water becomes the landscape and narrative, a character more deadly and perhaps more aware of its power than us mere mortals. We are beguiled by its sight, whether softly breaking waves on a sandy beach or a thunderous storm engulfing the cliff face. But also in other forms; as lakes and lagoons. Water is everywhere, and where there is water is the shadow of menace.

The human form is familiar to all of us. We like limbs connected to bodies. Writers of the dark and macabre are not too concerned if that remains the case. Indeed limbs, or rather pieces of the body, sometimes are best written about when not connected. It’s one of our greatest fears. It quite rightly riddles us with a very unsettling feeling. So why then do we turn the page? We’re about to find out.

The problem with the dark is you don’t really know what’s lurking in there. Something hiding? Something menacing? Or just an inky dome for the stars to twinkle on? Writers rarely let us dwell on the latter. No, they would much rather they put our nerves on edge, that our skin would begin to crawl and that the cold sweat of fear propels our pulse and heartbeat to nightmare-inducing trauma. I think they’re ready.

London’s East End has over the centuries been a magnet for immigration, innovation, culture, crime and a vast spectrum of other things. It is often seen as both part of and yet very distinct from the vast metropolis of London. Today it has been transformed from the often grimy, derelict and overcrowded area, that many of these stories describe, into a landscape of gentrification, sleek and shiny buildings and a booming economy. But here such noted talents as Arthur Morrison, Henry W. Nevinson, William Pett Ridge and Thomas Burke show the East End as it really was.

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.

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford upon Avon in late April 1565. He was one of eight children. Little is known about his life, but what is evident is the enormous contribution he has made to world literature. His writing was progressive, magnificent in scope and breathtaking in execution. His plays and sonnets helped enable the English language to speak with a voice unmatched by any other. William Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, survived by his wife and two daughters. He was buried two days after his death in the chancel of the Holy Trinity church.

The ships of Europe explore the globe. The Age of Mercantilism sets the stage for centuries to come. The Reformation is underway, and scientific thinking begins to challenge the Church even as nation falls upon nation. In the Americas and Asia, ancient empires clash. Cultures resonate and express themselves with the fruit of the Ottoman, Safavid, Moghul and Chinese expansion. In England, the Elizabethan age of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne, Jonson and Spenser dawns.

The Elizabethan age had almost departed, and the world had seen the rise of great European empires that continued to hunt with mischief between themselves as they traversed the globe in search of more spoils and territories. In England, the Civil War had brought about the will of Parliament and the replacement of the Crown as the governing body. But with these Puritan times, and the subsequent Restoration, poetry had entered a golden age. John Milton, John Dryden and Ben Jonson are but a few of the luminaries whose great verse followed in the wake of the immortal William Shakespeare.

The Elizabethan age had almost departed, and the world had seen the rise of great European empires that continued to hunt with mischief between themselves as they traversed the globe in search of more spoils and territories. In England the Civil War had brought about the will of Parliament and the replacement of the Crown as the governing body. But with these Puritan times, and the subsequent Restoration, poetry had entered a golden age. John Milton, John Dryden and Ben Jonson are but a few of the luminaries whose great verse followed in the wake of the immortal William Shakespeare.

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.

Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī is commonly known to us as Hafiz, the Persian poet who was born in Shiraz, Iran, in either 1315 or 1317. The facts of much of his early life are unknown to us but it is said that, at an early age, he memorised many passages of the Quran and was therefore given the title of Hafiz, which means 'the memoriser or the safe keeper'. Hafiz mainly wrote lyric poetry or ghazals - an ideal form for expressing the ecstasy of the divine and the intoxicating mystical union with God.

London. A candidate for global capital. Centre of an empire. The swift-beating heart of culture. A sprawling metropolis of life’s rich tapestry. And a bewildering Escher cityscape of overlapping and colliding forces. People, streets, buildings interweaving and interchanging. And our eminent writers have the talent and focus to reveal the story that lies beneath the words.