On a spring day in 1823, in the small coastal village of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, a child was born who would grow to become one of the most original and underappreciated voices in nineteenth-century American literature. Elizabeth Drew Barstow entered the world on May 6, in a town where the rhythms of the sea shaped daily existence and where salt spray and shipbuilding defined the community's character. The second…
“The fire no longer burns as of yore on the altar, the passion has died out, and embers have to be blowed up with the bellows.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Wonder, Spirituality
George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, was born on 22 November 1819 at South Farm on the Arbury estate near Nuneaton in Warwickshire, England, and died in London on 22 December 1880. She became one of the defining writers of the Victorian age, though she reached that position by a route unusually difficult for a woman of her period. Novelist, translator, editor, critic, essayist, and poet, Eliot brought philos…
“Animals are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.”
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
