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 never read one word of their abuse, and I should think it base to read their praises.”
Neighbourhood:
Light Verse Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Spirituality
George Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903, in the small town of Motihari in the Bengal Presidency of British India, emerged as one of the twentieth century’s most piercing literary voices. Though often remembered first as a novelist and essayist whose works dissected totalitarianism, social injustice, and the hypocrisies of power, Orwell began his writing life with poetry. Those early verses, lyrical yet…
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.”
Neighbourhood:
Modernist Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Longing, Sorrow
