Love sonnets are for romantics, starry-eyed lovers and ardent hearts. And Shakespeare's sonnets are the best ever written. But this is why they are also for cynics, for star-crossed lovers and for those who know the anguish of unrequited love. Some appear to be written to a young man, some to a woman. And although the poems are full of mystery - why did Shakespeare write them, and to whom? - each one speaks to us from across the centuries of love, hate and the intensity of being alive. INTRODUCED BY ANDREW McMILLAN 'This is a crazy, all-consuming, feverish and sweaty love; love, in all its uncut, full-strength intensity; an adolescent love' Don Paterson, Guardian