Alfred Bruce Douglas was born on 22 October 1870 at Ham Hill House, near Powick in Worcestershire, into a family whose rank, wealth, volatility, and theatrical public reputation would shape his life almost as powerfully as his literary gifts. He was the third son of John Sholto Douglas, ninth Marquess of Queensberry, and Lady Sybil Montgomery, daughter of the first Baron of Abergavenny. The boy was known from childho…
“If I had my life to live again I might even go in more for sport and less for literature.”
Neighbourhood:
Decadent Poets, Edwardian Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Bryan Waller Procter, known to generations of readers by the literary name Barry Cornwall, was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, on 21 November 1787, and died in London on 5 October 1874. He belonged to that broad, fascinating company of early nineteenth-century writers who stood close to the great Romantic generation without ever wholly entering its innermost circle. He was not a poet of Byron’s volcanic self-dramatization,…
“I do not know of any ancestors whom I have any right to boast of; they were small farmers during many generations.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Tenderness
