Did you know

• that Edgar Allan Poe's lines about 'the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome' were written when he was fifteen?

• that Christopher Smart began writing - with a hint already of his mature wit and energy - when he was five?

• that Dylan Thomas produced creditable verse at eleven?

• and Alexander Pope wrote what many regard as his prettiest poem when he was twelve?

• and George Herbert was writing sonnets home at the age of fourteen

• and as for Chatterton the marvellous boy, and Milton, and Emily Brontë, and Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost, and Wallace Stevens, and Sylvia Plath...

Jon Stallworthy has collected verses written in youth - often the very first preserved poems - by British, Irish, American and Commonwealth writers. The choice is governed by more than curiosity value: each piece is notable for its imagery, form or wit. The intention is to show what young writers have done that is durable and excellent, as a measure of what might be done today. The book demonstrates the necessary disciplines that come before real poetry and the delights those disciplines yield.