Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who became Mark Twain, was born on 30 November 1835 in the tiny village of Florida, Missouri, and died on 21 April 1910 in Redding, Connecticut. Few American writers have occupied so many roles in the national imagination: printer, river pilot, prospector, newspaper correspondent, lecturer, novelist, travel writer, social critic, entrepreneur, public celebrity, and, in a less frequently emph…
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Children's Verse, Light Verse Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Peace, Longing
Alfred Tennyson, later Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was born on 6 August 1809 at Somersby rectory in Lincolnshire, England, and died on 6 October 1892 at Lurgashall in Sussex. During his long life he became the defining poetic voice of the Victorian age: at once a public laureate who wrote for national occasions and a private, searching poet whose work returned obsessively to bereavement, desire, religious uncertainty, mem…
“I feel that the dead lives whatever the pseudo-savants say.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Dramatic Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Sorrow
