Alan Alexander Milne was born in Kilburn, London, on 18 January 1882, into a household where education, discipline, and intellectual curiosity were daily realities. He was the youngest of three sons of John Vine Milne and Sarah Marie Heginbotham Milne. His father was the headmaster of Henley House School, a small independent school in Kilburn, and the school stood at the center of family life. The young Alan was educ…
“The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.”
Neighbourhood:
Children's Verse, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Wonder, Tenderness
Clement Clarke Moore was born in New York City on 15 July 1779, into a family whose standing joined religious authority, learning, landholding, and old New York connections. He died on 10 July 1863, five days before his eighty-fourth birthday, having become a respected scholar, educator, churchman, landowner, and local civic figure. Yet history has remembered him overwhelmingly for a poem of fifty-six lines: “A Visit…
“It was written at the request of my children, and for their amusement, on Christmas Eve, 1822.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Children's Verse, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Joy, Tenderness
