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,…
“I went into the gallery of the House of Commons as a parliamentary reporter when I was a boy not eighteen, and I left it—I can hardly believe the inexorable truth—nigh thirty years ago.”
Neighbourhood:
Light Verse Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Spirituality
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh on 13 November 1850, into a family whose public achievements seemed to prescribe his future long before he could choose one for himself. His father, Thomas Stevenson, was a distinguished civil engineer and designer of lighthouses, heir to a formidable Scottish professional dynasty. His mother, Margaret Isabella Balfour Stevenson, came from another prominent family; her fat…
“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”
Neighbourhood:
Children's Verse, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Joy, Wonder
