Cecil Frances Alexander, born Cecil Frances Humphreys on 14 April 1818 and dead on 12 October 1895, became one of the most widely sung and influential hymn writers of the nineteenth century. Her name may be less immediately familiar than the opening lines of her best-known hymns, yet “Once in Royal David’s City,” “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” “There Is a Green Hill Far Away,” and “Jesus Calls Us o’er the Tumult”…
“literary sacrilege—sacrilege against the dead in that which was best and noblest of them”
Neighbourhood:
Children's Verse, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Irish Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Joy
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,…
“Just as a nation is happy whose records are barren, so is a society fortunate that has no history—and its president unfortunate.”
Neighbourhood:
Light Verse Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Spirituality
