Join us in Stockport for an entertaining and enlightening evening with bestselling author Mark Forsyth (The Etymologicon) as he gives us a light-hearted and very funny tour through English poetry in support of his new book Rhyme and Reason: A Short History of Poetry and People (for People who Don't Usually Read Poetry). Discover how a kitchen-maid became one of the most popular poets of the 18th Century; What Byron really thought of 'Johnny Keats's piss-a-bed poetry'; Why the Globe Theatre was more than twice the size of Wembley Stadium and much, much more!

The talk will be followed by an audience Q&A and booksigning.

Tickets are £5.00 each or £14.99 including a copy of Rhyme and Reason. Light refreshments are included in the ticket price.

Event starts at 6:30pm (doors at 6pm)

About the book:

Did you know:

- Lord Byron sold more books in a day than Jane Austen did in her lifetime

- During the First World War there were more women poets published than soldier poets

- A kitchen-maid became one of the most popular poets of the 18th century

Some people worry that they don't appreciate poetry; but English poetry wasn't written to be appreciated, it was written to be enjoyed. For six centuries people have been reading poetry for enjoyment - for fun, romance, religion and entertainment - and this is a book about those people.

Rhyme & Reason takes you from a medieval accountant (called Chaucer) trying to entertain his lord, past a doomed love affair in the Tower of London, through adoring sonnets and notebooks filled with dirty poems, and into the heart of Byromania and the Victorian hearth, to help you understand why poetry has had such an enduring hold on the British psyche.

From the poems of housemaids to the rhymes of kings, it's the history of Britain through the poems that people read, recited and loved.

"An enchanting and highly readable achievement that reminds us that poetry was always for everyone, not just for academics, intellectuals and bohemians. Wonderfully done." - Stephen Fry

About the author:

Born in London in 1977, Mark Forsyth (aka The Inky Fool) was given a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary as a christening present and has never looked back. His book The Etymologicon was a Sunday Times #1 bestseller and was followed by The Horologicon and The Elements of Eloquence. He has written A Christmas Cornucopia on the origins of Christmas traditions and A Short History of Drunkenness. He has also penned a specially commissioned introduction for the new edition of the Collins English Dictionary, and written a novel for children called A Riddle for a King. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in London with his dictionaries, and blogs at blog.inkyfool.com