Sir Henry Taylor occupies one of the more curious niches in nineteenth-century English letters: a poet who spent his working life not in garrets or universities but behind the desk of a government office, quietly shaping the administration of Britain's colonies while writing, in his spare hours, verse dramas that made him, for a brief and dazzling season, one of the most celebrated writers in the land. He was born on…
“Shy and unready men are great betrayers of secrets; for there are few wants more urgent for the moment than the want of something to say.”
Neighbourhood:
Dramatic Poets, Edwardian Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Sorrow, Spirituality
Alfred Austin was born on 30 May 1835 at Headingley, then a village just outside Leeds in Yorkshire, and died on 2 June 1913 at Ashford, Kent. For seventeen years, from 1896 until his death, he held the conspicuous and difficult office of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Yet his name has endured less securely than those of the poets who preceded and surrounded him. To later readers, Austin has often appeared chie…
“Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things, and I'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
