In the fading light of Victorian England, when the certainties of empire began to crack and a fin-de-siècle weariness settled over the literary world, Ernest Christopher Dowson emerged as one of the most hauntingly beautiful voices of his generation. His brief, tragic life—spanning a mere thirty-two years from 1867 to 1900—produced poetry of such delicate melancholy and exquisite craftsmanship that it continues to ca…
“I confess Our Lady of the Seven Hills encroaches on me, in these latter days.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Decadent Poets, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan, later Caroline Norton and, in the final months of her life, Lady Stirling-Maxwell, was born in London on 22 March 1808 and died in London on 15 June 1877. She was a poet, novelist, dramatist, political hostess, journalist, pamphleteer, and one of the most consequential campaigners for married women’s legal rights in nineteenth-century Britain. Her fame during her lifetime rested partly on…
“A woman has no redress for the wrongs inflicted upon her by her husband, unless she can obtain a separation under circumstances which the law recognises.”
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair