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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. 

Mirabai was a Rajput princess born to the Rathore clan in 1498 in Kudaki, Rajasthan, in northern India. Despite being one of the most significant saints in the Bhakti tradition and an immensely popular Hindu mystic and religious poet, very few facts are actually known about her life including her date of birth. It is clear that her mother died when she was very young and she was greatly influenced by her father, also a worshipper of Krishna. From a young age, Mirabai’s devotion to Krishna was absolute surrender and complete devotion.

Keats. A short life but a legacy of works that few, if any, can rival. And of course his end was to be tragically Romantic. Keats was returning one night to his home in Hampstead when he coughed. He coughed a single drop of blue blood upon his hand and said, ‘I know the colour of that blood, it is arterial blood, it is my death warrant, I must die’. And so it was that tuberculosis took its slow, devastating hold.

In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the short stories of Virginia Woolf. Adeline Virginia Woolf was born in 1882 and was to become a founder of modernist writing. Her background is filled with elements of tragedy that she somehow overcame to become a revered writer. Her mother died when she was 13, her half sister Stella two years later and with that came her first of several nervous breakdowns. 

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.

Anne Kingsmill was born in April 1661 (an exact date is not known) in Sydmonton, Hampshire. Throughout her life, Anne was involved in several Court cases that dragged on for years. These involved both a share of her parent’s estate for her education and later her and her husband’s share of an inheritance. In 1682, Anne became a maid of honour to Mary of Modena (wife of James, Duke of York, and later King James II) at St James’ Palace. Anne's interest in poetry began at the palace, and she started writing her own verse. 

The most enduring and popular theme of poems and poets is that of love. Love changes; its rhythms pause and pulse on the tiniest of things and the biggest of thrills. Within its shades all other feelings, all other emotions, gently reside, waiting for their moment. In these 50 poems, the many, many shades of love reveal themselves.

The Haunted House is a skillful portmanteau by Dickens, assembling the best literary talent of his age, including Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Hesba Stretton, Adelaide Anne Proctor, George Augustus Sala and, of course, the literary leviathan himself, to delight us, scare us and occasionally raise a laugh or two before the next moment of fear and dread come calling. 

Stephen Crane was born 1st November 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, and was the eighth surviving child out of 14. Incredibly, he began writing at the age of four and was published several times by the age of 16. Crane only began a full-time education when he was nine but quickly mastered the grades needed to catch up and move forward. Although educated at Lafayette and Syracuse, he had little interest in completing university and was keener to move on to a career, declaring college to be ‘a waste of time’.

William Hope Hodgson was born in Essex, England on November 15th, 1877. Over his short career he produced a large body of work which explored and covered many genres. From horror, to science fiction, to stories on the sea, where he had spent much of his early life. One of his most memorable creations was his Carnacki, Supernatural Detective creation. This fused together his passion for sleuthing and interest in the occult. It was a memorable success. 

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19th, 1809, and was orphaned at an early age. Taken in by the Allan family, his education was cut short by lack of money, and he went to the military academy West Point where he failed to become an officer.  His early literary works were poetic, but he quickly turned to prose. He worked for several magazines and journals until in January 1845, The Raven was published and became an instant classic.

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. 

In 1816, Dr Polidori was given the job of Byron’s personal physician and accompanied him on a trip through Europe. At the Villa Diodati, Byron’s rented villa at Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the pair met with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Claire Clairmont. One night in June, Byron suggested they each write a ghost story. There were to be two outstanding works from that evening: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Polidori’s ‘The Vampyre’, which would be the first published modern vampire story in English. 

James Thomson was born in Port Glasgow, Scotland, on the 23rd November 1834. At the age of eight, his sister died and his father suffered a stroke. Thomson was now sent south to be raised in a London orphanage, the Royal Caledonian Asylum on Chalk near Holloway. Shortly thereafter, he was given the news that his mother had also now died. It was a bleak beginning to the next chapters of his life and would undoubtedly go a long way towards shaping both his character and his future.

Ernest Bramah was born on 20th March 1868. He was an intensely private man and very little about his life was ever released. Bramah dropped out of Manchester Grammar school at 16, in almost all his subjects he was close to the bottom of his class, and took a job at a farm. His father then invested substantial sums in setting him up with his own farm, but Bramah’s long term interests were elsewhere. In his spare time he would write vignettes on local subjects and send them to The Birmingham News for publication. 

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was born on August 28th, 1814, at 45 Lower Dominick Street, Dublin, into a literary family with Huguenot, Irish and English roots. The children were tutored, but, according to his brother William, the tutor taught them little if anything. Le Fanu was eager to learn and used his father's library to educate himself about the world. He was a creative child and by 15, had taken to writing poetry.

In 1890, W. B. Yeats and Ernest Rhys founded a poetry club. Based mainly at Fleet Street’s immortal ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese’ pub with occasional appearances at the Domino room in the Café Royal, poets gathered together to dine and drink. Whilst it was based on a core of poets many others attended on an ad hoc basis including Oscar Wilde, Francis Thompson and Lord Alfred Douglas. The camaraderie, banter and poetry that played out in their dreams, ambitions and for many, their difficult lives led Yeats to call them ‘the tragic generation’.

Francis Marion Crawford, an only child, was born on 2nd August 1854 at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. He was a nephew to Julia Ward Howe, the American poet and writer of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Crawford was educated at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, and then on to Cambridge University, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Rome. In 1879, he went to India, to study Sanskrit and then to edit The Indian Herald. In 1881, he returned to America to continue his Sanskrit studies at Harvard University.

Willa Sibert Cather was born on 7th December 1873 on her grandmother's farm in the Back Creek Valley near Winchester, Virginia. After several years and moves, the family eventually settled in Red Cloud, Nebraska, and for the first time, Cather could now attend school. In Red Cloud, Cather had her earliest writings published in the local Red Cloud Chief newspaper. Her time in the Midwest created a vivid tranche of experiences for the young woman. 

Elizabeth Stevenson was born in Chelsea in London on 29th September 1810. Both parents embedded their strong Unitarian beliefs into Elizabeth, who rebelliously was often reluctant to display these religious convictions. The early death of Elizabeth’s mother saw her sent away to be brought up by her maternal aunt in Knutsford, Cheshire. Her father now remarried, but Elizabeth spent most of her childhood in Cheshire, away from her father and his new family but was supportive towards her half-siblings.