Susan’s output in the last ten years of her life was prolific, but when it came to compiling the poems, after a good deal of deliberation, a clear thematic structure and underlying development seemed to dictate the final order of that original poignant collection.

There are a number of changes to the first edition: a slight reordering of the poems, minor amendments to the structure of the poem cycle, a revised, enhanced layout, and indexes of titles and first lines. More significantly, the original selection has been augmented by many additional poems, which clearly fit within the cycle thematically and structurally.

Many of the poems in Inside the Stretch of My Heart were triggered by the quotidian experience of living and working in central London in the late 1960s and early 1970s, yet beneath the fragile surface of her acute observations of domestic and office life in the city, intensely spiritual insights are being played out, sometimes delicately, sometimes shockingly, but always movingly.

The poems in the third collection in this volume, Before and After the Darkness, were written in the early 1970s, like those in Inside the Stretch of My Heart, and include a number of poems written in 1973 and 1974 in the months before Susan’s death.

Two further companion volumes are also being published: A Flock of Blackbirds (selected novellas and short stories); and her novel, Drifting Between Empty Tramlines.

Profits from the sales of all six volumes are being donated to three charities: Mind, the Samaritans and Sane. Facsimiles of the original typescripts and manuscripts are available online at:

www.aesopbooks.com/susannoble

About the author Brought up in South London, Susan Noble was the second of three children. Her childhood was enriched by being part of our large and closely-knit Jewish family. Unfortunately stricken by polio (then known as infantile paralysis) in her early years, Susan went through life with a degree of physical handicap which she was to overcome with courage and determination.

Educated at Croydon High School, Susan studied English at Somerville College, Oxford. After graduating, Susan worked in London, first at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, dictating books for transcription into Braille, and later at the National Central Library in London, where she qualified as a Chartered Librarian.

Susan’s exceptional sensitivity is reflected in the intense outpouring of poems to be found in The Dream of Stairs, Inside the Stretch of My Heart, and Before and After the Darkness. In these haunting, poignant poems, she chronicles her personal response to the world around her, while vividly portraying the inner landscape of her own mental and emotional struggle.

‘There was an intellectual and emotional intensity which burned within her and which predominantly found outward expression in her writing and when she expressed herself thus she did so with great imaginative power and also with an un