Philip James Bailey was born in Nottingham on 22 April 1816 and died there on 6 September 1902, after a long life in which one early work made him, for a time, one of the most discussed poets in the English-speaking world. His name is now chiefly attached to Festus, the immense dramatic poem first published in 1839, but Bailey’s career was more than the history of a single Victorian bestseller. It was the history of…
Compare Poets
Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Poet A
Philip James Bailey
Poet B
Robert Stephen Hawker
Compare two related contemporaries
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 67%
Blended 67%
Swap sides
Another related pair
In the rugged landscape of Victorian Cornwall, where granite cliffs meet the tempestuous Atlantic and ancient legends whisper through the mist, there lived a man whose life embodied the very essence of romantic poetry. Robert Stephen Hawker (1803-1875) was not merely a poet who happened to be a clergyman, nor simply a priest who dabbled in verse. He was a singular figure whose eccentric personality, passionate dedica…
“What a life mine would be if it were all written and published in a book.”
In time
Philip James Bailey
Robert Stephen Hawker
1803
1902
They overlapped for 60 years (1816–1875).
When Philip James Bailey was born, Robert Stephen Hawker was about 13.
Philip James Bailey was about 59 when Robert Stephen Hawker died.
On the map
About 342 km separate Nottingham, England from Plymouth, Devon, England. Both have ground in England.
Philip James Bailey
Robert Stephen Hawker
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
Philip James Bailey: nottingham, thomas bailey, anne reed, universalist theology, romantic poetry, benjamin carpenter, the angel world, the mystic. Robert Stephen Hawker: cornwall, morwenstow, charlotte i'ans, newdigate prize, pompeii, tendrils, records of the western shore, ecclesia.
Poems that secretly rhyme
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
The world around them
While their lives overlapped
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Philip James Bailey
1840
Called to the Bar
Robert Stephen Hawker
Emotional landscapes
Philip James Bailey: Peace, Joy, Wonder. Robert Stephen Hawker: Spirituality, Wonder, Fear.