John Donne was born on the 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 Haywood, married a wealthy widower, ensuring the family were looked after. He received a good education at both Oxford and Cambridge but was unable to obtain a degree without taking the oath of...

Winifred Holtby was born on 23rd June 1898 to a prosperous farming family in the village of Rudston in Yorkshire.A governess provided her early education before she went to Queen Margaret's School in Scarborough. After passing the entrance exam for Somerville College, Oxford in 1917, she decided to join the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in early 1918. However, soon after her arrival in France, the War ended.She returned to study at Oxford and met fellow student Vera Brittain...

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 publishe...