Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in a modest terraced house at 1 Mile End Terrace in Landport, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. The second of eight children born to John and Elizabeth Dickens, his arrival came during a time of naval activity and modest aspirations in a bustling port town. His father, John, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, was a genial, improvident man whose love for literature,…
“You will, of course, receive my opinion as that of an individual writer and student of art, who by no means claims to be infallible.”
Neighbourhood:
Light Verse Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Spirituality
William Makepeace Thackeray was born on 18 July 1811 in Calcutta, British India, into a family whose comfort and status were closely connected to the expanding machinery of the East India Company. His father, Richmond Thackeray, was a civil servant and collector of revenue; his mother, Anne Becher Thackeray, came from a socially ambitious Anglo-Indian family. Although Thackeray would become one of the great interpret…
“There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.”
Neighbourhood:
Light Verse Poets, Satirical Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Despair, Sorrow