Owen Seaman, born on 18 September 1861 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, and dead on 2 February 1936, occupied an unusually influential place in British literary culture for a man whose name is now less familiar than the names of many writers he parodied, edited, or helped to popularize. Poet, humorist, classicist, journalist, critic, lecturer, and long-serving editor of Punch, he was one of the most conspicuous representat…
“I understand, on good authority, that the tendency of the public at this juncture of the War is to demand light refreshment. Well, they have it here.”
Neighbourhood:
Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Sorrow, Anger
Charles Hamilton Sorley was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 19 May 1895, and was killed in France on 13 October 1915, not yet twenty-one years old. His literary life lasted only a few years, and his published body of verse was small, much of it assembled after his death. Yet he occupies a singular place among the poets of the First World War. Unlike writers whose work became famous through prolonged service, later dis…
“The war is a great thing, but it is not the greatest thing.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Edwardian Poets, War Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair