Where All the Ladders Start

Who were Shakespeare's 'Friend' and the 'Dark Lady'? Why did Donnerisk his life and ruin his career for a seventeen-year-old girl? Why didWordsworth's sister retire to her bed on his wedding day?Writing never takes place in a vacuum and much of the finest poetry inthe English language has been inspired by particular people - patrons, spouses,lovers, friends, or just casual acquaintances. Whether relegated to anobscurity they do not deserve or thrust into prominence they did not seek,their importance to the creative process is inescapable.In Where All theLadders Start, Julian Lovelock discusses with characteristic incisivenessand enthusiasm nine major British poets and the real lives behind their mostsignificant works. Along the way he shows how poetry has developed over thepast four hundred years and provides suggestions for further reading, while forconvenience all of the relevant poems and extracts are reproduced in full.Written for both the seasoned reader and the student encountering these poemsfor the first time, Lovelock's analysis will inspire and entertain in equalmeasure. 

Julian Lovelock has spent his life in education, as a teacher,headmaster and university lecturer. He is now a Senior Research Fellow in theDepartment of English at the University of Buckingham, where he was previouslyDean of Arts and Languages and Pro Vice-Chancellor.His most recent publications with The Lutterworth Press are FromMorality to Mayhem: The Fall and Rise of the English School Story (2018)and The Business of Reading: A Hundred Years of the English Novel (2022).