In the twilight of the Victorian era, when the literary world was dominated by towering figures like Tennyson, Browning, and Swinburne, a quieter voice emerged from the shadows of London's Hyde Park Square. Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, born on September 23, 1861, would prove to be one of the most intriguing and underappreciated literary figures of her generation. Her life, spanning forty-six years until her death on Aug…
“A hermit-crab am I by nature, and shall be, to the end of my days. And yet the human kind is a very good kind, and kindly human too.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Decadent Poets, Love Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Edward Lear was born on 12 May 1812 at Holloway, then a semi-rural northern suburb of London, and died at San Remo, Italy, on 29 January 1888. He is now cherished as one of the great makers of English literary nonsense: the author of “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “The Jumblies,” “The Dong with a Luminous Nose,” and hundreds of limericks populated by improbable old persons, birds, cats, Quangle Wangles, and creatures wh…
“I am a great lover of nonsense.”
Neighbourhood:
Children's Verse, Light Verse Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Joy, Peace