George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, was born on 22 November 1819 at South Farm on the Arbury estate near Nuneaton in Warwickshire, England, and died in London on 22 December 1880. She became one of the defining writers of the Victorian age, though she reached that position by a route unusually difficult for a woman of her period. Novelist, translator, editor, critic, essayist, and poet, Eliot brought philos…
“What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?”
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon, Hampshire, into a family whose modest circumstances, intellectual liveliness, and close emotional bonds supplied the material conditions for an extraordinary literary education. She was the seventh of eight children born to the Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Leigh Austen. Her father was rector of the parishes of Steventon and Deane; her mother came from the…
“But I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life.”
Neighbourhood:
Light Verse Poets, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Sorrow, Longing