Felicia Dorothea Hemans, born Felicia Dorothea Browne on 25 September 1793 and dead on 16 May 1835, was among the most celebrated poets of the early nineteenth century. In her lifetime she was read with an enthusiasm now difficult to imagine: her poems circulated throughout Britain, Ireland, the United States, and the British Empire; they appeared in annuals, schoolbooks, anthologies, newspapers, and domestic parlors…
“I bear being long shut up in the house about as ill as a gipsy or an Arab would.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
In the autumn of 1867, a sixteen-year-old girl sat at her desk in Litchfield, Michigan, struggling with algebra homework. The mathematical figures before her kept blurring, replaced by a persistent phrase that demanded attention: "Curfew must not ring tonight." What began as an interruption to her studies would become one of the most recited poems of the nineteenth century, launching Rose Hartwick into unexpected lit…
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Children's Verse, Death & Mortality, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Peace, Wonder
