The Dream of Stairs

A Dream of Stairs: A Poem Cycle was privately printed as a posthumous memorial volume in 1975, a year after Susan Angela Noble's untimely death in 1974 at the age of 31. Having announced with typically light-hearted self-depreciation, 'The muse has struck me!' Susan wrote the poems in batches of half a dozen or more, from 1965 onwards, in what she described as manic bursts of creativity. But these poems are anything but light-hearted, and even a first reading will reveal clearly that levity is not on the menu in a universe 'Where there are no jokes / And people do not pretend.'

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.

To mark the fortieth anniversary of Susan's death, this second edition, published in hardback, paperback and Kindle, makes the book publicly available for the first time. 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.

Three companion volumes are also being published: Inside the Stretch of My Heart (a collection of previously unpublished poems); A Flock of Blackbirds (selected novellas and short stories); and her novel, Between the Tramlines.
Profits from the sales of all four 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 was reflected in the prolific outpouring of poems that make up The Dream of Stairs and Inside the Stretch of My Heart. In these intense, haunting poems, she chronicles her personal response to the world around her, while vividly portraying the inner landscape of her mental and emotional struggle.