LONG John Silver, tall ships and seafaring ballads feature in a new anthology of John Masefield's poetry.

The Ledbury-born former Poet Laureate is regarded as one of the great storytellers of English poetry and this collection, Sea Fever, Selected Poem of John Masefield, includes some of his best-loved work.

Cargoes, Sea Fever and the Ballard of Long John Silver are all included.

Edited by Philip Errington, editor of The Journal of the John Masefield Society, Sea-Fever is a representative anthology of Masefield's poems in chronological sequence spanning his long career.

Pastoral poems mix with exciting seafaring ballads, poems based on Arthurian legend and war poems influenced by Masefield's experiences in Red Cross hospitals in France and Gallipoli in the Second World War.

From poems taken from Masefield's well-known children's book The Box of Delights, to poems about Churchill and J F Kennedy, it is a diverse collection with a full introduction.

Sea-Fever, Selected Poems of John Masefield is published by Fyfield Books at £9.99.