Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 at Steventon, Hampshire, into a family whose modest circumstances, intellectual liveliness, and close emotional bonds supplied the material conditions for an extraordinary literary education. She was the seventh of eight children born to the Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Leigh Austen. Her father was rector of the parishes of Steventon and Deane; her mother came from the…
“I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.”
Neighbourhood:
Light Verse Poets, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Sorrow, Longing
Richard Monckton Milnes, later Lord Houghton, was born on 19 June 1809 in London, into a family whose wealth, political standing, and Yorkshire connections gave him access to the governing and literary worlds of nineteenth-century Britain. He died on 11 August 1885 at Fryston Hall, near Pontefract in Yorkshire, the family seat that remained both a refuge and a symbol of his inherited position. During his long life he…
“The very absence of anything like abstruse botanical science, or any but necessary phraseology, no doubt adds to its charm.”
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Wonder
