The life of William Morris presents one of the most remarkable and multifaceted careers in Victorian literature and culture. Born on March 24, 1834, in Walthamstow, Essex, and dying on October 3, 1896, in Hammersmith, London, Morris packed into his sixty-two years an astonishing array of accomplishments as poet, designer, craftsman, printer, translator, socialist activist, and visionary. He remains a figure who defie…
“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
Neighbourhood:
Nature Poets, Political Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Spirituality, Sorrow
William Ernest Henley was born on 23 August 1849 in Gloucester, England, and died on 11 July 1903 at Woking, Surrey. He occupies an unusual place in English literary history: widely remembered by the public for a single short poem, “Invictus,” yet far more consequential in his own age as a poet, editor, critic, journalist, dramatist, and formidable presence in literary society. Henley’s life was shaped by physical pa…
“He may not have been a great man but assuredly he was a great writer; he may have been a faulty novelist but assuredly he was a rare artist in words.”
Neighbourhood:
Confessional Poets, Death & Mortality, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing