Golden Treasury : The Best of Classic English Verse

Francis Turner Palgrave was born in 1824 and educated at Charterhouse and Oxford University. After ten years in the education department of the civil service, he was appointed professor of poetry at Oxford University. He published three volumes of his own poetry, but is best remembered for compiling The Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics, which was first published in 1861. He died in 1897.

Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her poetry has received many awards, including the Signal Prize for Children's Verse, the Whitbread, Forward and T. S. Eliot Prizes, and the Lannan and E. M. Forster Prize in America. She was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 2009 to 2019. Her many collections include Mean Time, Love Poems and The Bees, which won the Costa Poetry Award. Her writing for children includes Queen Munch and Queen Nibble, The Skipping-Rope Snake and The Tear Thief. She was made a DBE in the 2015 New Year Honours list. In 2021, she was awarded the international lifetime achievement award the Golden Wreath for her achievements in poetry.