With its roots in the devotional verse of the early Christian church and the long lyric poems of the Irish bards, Irish poetry has a rich and robust tradition both of engagement and self-reflection.

Pomes Penyeach, a collection written when Joyce had published Dubliners and was completing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, explores intimate themes of adultery, jealousy, and betrayal that would reappear transformed in the later Ulysses.

Ever since its first flowering in the 1920s, jazz has had an influence on American poetry, and this anthology offers a collection of jazz poems. From the Harlem Renaissance to the Beat Movement, from the poets of the New York School to the contemporary poetry scene, the jazz aesthetic has been a literary force.

The classic tale of Mowgli, first published in 1894, about a boy who learned the law of the jungle as he grew up among a pack of wolves in India's Seeonee Hills.

While in the service of India's Nizam of Hyderbad, Marmaduke Pickthall converted to Islam, and, with the help of Muslim theologians and linguists, produced this English interpretation of the Holy Koran.

When George, Viscount Uffenham turns the entire family fortune into diamonds and squirrels them away, naturally he forgets where he has hidden the loot and finds himself compelled to let the family seat to stay afloat. So it is that Mrs Cork's health colony comes into being, providing the perfect setting for crime and young love to flower.

Dickens' celebrated novel of innocence betrayed and then triumphant. It recreates the London underworld populated by such characters as Fagin, Bill Sikes, Nancy and the Artful Dodger, who are contrasted with the friends and family of the orphaned Oliver.