Showing results by narrator "Richard Mitchley" in All Categories

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.

Love. Perhaps the one word solution for everything. An emotion, a state of mind that we strive for, search for. A wondrous force that binds, inspires, and a force that can spin out of control; unbalanced and fragile. Love reflects, changes and embraces us all. The capture of love in this life is a very special happening, it may only strike us once, and for some perhaps never. But what if those on the ‘other side’ have designs on us? What if their desire is just so strong that we can’t resist? Can true love survive?

Whilst this given name and the poets included can seem at first glance broad and unmanageable, the name both historically and artistically is a near perfect fit. Those poets that pledged support to Charles I, a connoisseur and patron of fine arts, were in the main courtiers or closely aligned. Among their number were Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Thomas Carew and Sir John Suckling. These poets shied away from verse on religion or philosophy but mused instead on love, joy and simpler things, very much living for the ‘now’.

In January 1866 Hopkins composed his most ascetic poem, The Habit of Perfection, but a few days later he included poetry in the list of things to be given up for Lent. In July he decided to become a Catholic, and by May 1868 Hopkins firmly 'resolved to be religious'. Less than a week later, he made a bonfire of his poems and ceased to write for almost seven years.

As Islam moved from its Arabian heartland to a wider geographic area, its core message remained albeit adapted to different lands, to different ears. Poets were ever eager to provide an alternate way of delivering the ‘message’ in beautiful verse. Their simplicity was embracing, their ornateness a humble offering to greater forces. The poems here are both profound and wide-ranging.

Trains have always held a special place for most of us. We’re intrigued by the mere fact that we can sit down in one place and arrive in another and enjoy the adventure and time in between. In this volume we explore both the journeys and the workers who run and maintain the railway network.

Otto and Leni have escaped to England from Nazi Germany. They thought they were safe, but now the British want them to go back. Dropped behind enemy lines, they embark on a secret operation codenamed Wolfsangel. Their mission is to find and kidnap a girl who could bring down Hitler. And so begins their bravest journey yet.

One of the most oft-used themes for an author to explore is that of themselves and how they see authors in stories coping with everything around them.

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 literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity's time people couldn't read and texts couldn't be published in any great number.

Captain Lionel Wafer and his fellow-pirates - Toad, Brace-and-Bit and Winkle, are no ordinary ruffians. Clinging to the belief that life should be simple, free and unplanned they set off in a converted teashop of a ship, renamed The Sinful Sausage, to sail backwards and forwards over the bounding blue. In no time a dastardly plan has formed in Captain Wafer's mind to kidnap the famous inventor, Humbert Cash-Cash, from his sunshine retreat and purloin his inventions - or at the very least pinch his diamond doorknob.

Conversations happen everywhere. A few words to pass the time or a detailed examination of views. But on trains they seem to be different. Speaking whilst in motion gives the whole discussion a momentum that often takes us into uncharted territory.

Elizabeth Gaskell is equally well known as Mrs Gaskell. When her mother died, she was three months old and she was sent to live in Knutsford, Cheshire with her Aunt Hannah, this setting would become the basis for her novel Cranford.

Rudyard Kipling: great Victorian, great writer of empire, great man. From The Jungle Book to The Man Who Would Be King to a great and voluminous body of poetry, featuring works of the calibre of "If" and "On The Road To Mandalay", here shows us another facet of his truly incredible talent: ghost stories. Collected for your listening pleasure are a selection of chilling, disturbing, but always entertaining stories from a man at the top of his craft and always aware of his effect on the minds of us mere mortals.

Maugham spent the winter months of 1919 travelling 1500 miles up the Yangtze river. Always more interested in people than places, he noted down acute and finely crafted sketches of those he met on countless scraps of paper. In the resulting collection we encounter Western missionaries, army officers and company managers who are culturally out of their depth in the immensity of the Chinese civilisation.

In the English language ‘bittersweet’ is that most pivotal of words. The mixture of sadness and happiness that suggest both but often bringing us smartly to earth, smack dab in-between them both, with little of either.

In this volume we bring together men of the cloth, those people of faith who spent most of their lives in devotional duties in the service of one so they could, in their spare time, serve another.

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?

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.

Sleep. That most mysterious of times. The unconscious hours. Everyone needs it. Sleep offers a respite from the rigors and challenges of the day - a chance for the brain to process what has happened and bring rest and recuperation before the cycle of daytime activity begins again. Our poets, from Kipling and Swinburne through Hafiz, James Joyce, Edgar Allan Poe and a pillowful of others, explore the wish to rest, to close the eyes and reside in the land of nod.

Since its inception in the 19th Century photography has been a trusted source capturing both truth and reality. It cannot lie. Our eyes may deceive us, but the camera cannot. In this volume whilst our classic authors are at the early edge of photography’s development, they use it in ways that are both innovative and atmospheric as very often the camera and the photographer become a central part in many fascinating stories.