Sarah Chauncey Woolsey, who wrote under the enduringly cheerful name Susan Coolidge, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on 29 January 1835, and died in Newport, Rhode Island, on 9 April 1905. She occupies a central place in the history of American children’s literature, though her reputation has often rested too narrowly on a single title: What Katy Did (1872). That novel and its sequels made her one of the best-known writ…
“There is a saving grace in truth which helps truth-tellers through the worst of their troubles.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Children's Verse, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Peace
Charlotte Brontë was born on 21 April 1816 at Thornton, near Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the third surviving child of Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell Brontë. She died on 31 March 1855, not yet thirty-nine years old, after creating a body of work that transformed the English novel. Though chiefly celebrated as a novelist, she began as a poet, wrote poetry throughout her life, and brought a poet’s inten…
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
From the biographies
novel
women
fiction
Susan Coolidge:
cleveland, newport, what katy did, katy carr, victorian domestic fiction, civil war nurse, theodore dwight woolsey, eyebright.
Charlotte Brontë:
thornton, bradford, jane eyre, villette, patrick brontë, maria branwell brontë, angrian chronicles, gondal.
