About Laurel Books

We have been independent 'not for profit' publishers of poetry and fiction since 1988, aiming to publish a new book every year or two. Here are some of our more recent titles. 

You're Having Me On! Family Poems by John Fuller

This delightful collection of poems for children by one of our significant and most accomplished, serious poets is full of all the fun and affection you might expect at a family party. Introducing a menagerie of talkative and comic animals, it is superbly illustrated with fourteen drawings by Teresa Robertson. 

ISBN 978-1-873390-15-3  64pp Pbk £8.99   

Like Sorrow or a Tune, Poems by Eleanor Farjeon

Edited by Anne Harvey, with a preface by Piers Plowright

Eleanor Farjeon had her first poetry published in 1908 and she went on to write over 80 books, including several classics for children. In a long literary life she numbered among her friends D.H.Lawrence, Robert Frost, Walter de la Mare and most famously, Edward Thomas. She became one of his closest collaborators at the time he was writing his great poems, just before his death in the First World War. This loss spurred her to write some of her most poignant work, which went on to develop a profound, spiritual dimension.

ISBN 978-1-873390-14-6  Pbk 160pp £9.99

Something Mortal, The Poetry of Nick Montgomery

Nick Montgomery who died in 2011, aged 52, was a man with many talents. He played with the rock band Microdisney, wrote songs and essays, worked as an academic and teacher, he drew and he painted.

'Something Mortal' is his remarkable take on poetry, collected after his death by his sisters, mainly sonnet sequences, centred around 'Eros Rose', an extended reflection of love and its loss.

And the theme of loss is central to several poems which touch on the life and death of Nick's older brother Stephen, which are possibly unique in their treatment of their subject. Both men, both brothers, ended by paying the price for taking life to its extremes. 

ISBN 978-1-873390-13-9  64pp Pbk  £8.99 

The Deceitful Calm, Poems by Edmund Blunden 

Edited by Dr Rennie Parker and Margi Blunden 

Edmund Blunden began his career as a writer in 1914, continuing to write poetry into the 1960s. This selection attempts to represent each aspect of the poetry of the writer who began with the brutal experiences of the trenches.

ISBN 978-1-873390-08-5  128pp Pbk  £8.99

Strange Meetings, Poems by Harold Monro

Edited by Dominic Hibberd  

Harold Monro was nothing less than central to the poetry revolution which just preceded the First World War. He ran the Poetry Bookshop, founded periodicals and societies, and encouraged talented young poets. T.S. Eliot wrote ".. he has not simply done something that no one else has done, but has done something that none one else has done at all."   Monro's work is meaningful today for its treatment of the War, his personal loss, his lover was killed in 1916, and after the destruction, his consideration of the negative side of in the human relationship with nature.

ISBN 978-1-873390-05-4  128pp Pbk  £7.99

The Blackbird Inspector, Pamela Coren 

This distinctive poetry springs from a life's engagement with music, Quakerism and the landscapes of moor and fen. The poems take a harsh, second look at the themes of past and present, the natural and mysterious, love and reality, and speak out for justice with an independent female voice.

ISBN 978-1-873390-07-8  Pbk 64pp  £7.99 

What Follows?  Patrick Ingram

These are poems about love and farewell. A visit to Sicily provided an opportunity to explore some of antiquity's most famous entrances to the underworld and to discover that a sense of humour was, long ago, considered sensible in expressing one's grief.

ISBN 978-1-873390-09-2  64pp Hbk  £9.99