John Milton is remembered and admired for his epic blank-verse poem Paradise Lost (1667). Born in London in 1608, he had expected to become an Anglican priest, but instead he was drawn to writing and philosophical studies. In 1638-39 he toured France and Italy, meeting...
John Bunyan’s name is eternally linked to his most famous work, The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678). It was an immediate success and is among the most widely published books in English. Born in 1628 in Elstow, near Bedford (50 miles north of London), Bunyan underwent a...
Samuel Taylor Coleridge owes his fame to his masterful poetry and also to his influence on other poets, including his friend William Wordsworth. The two first met in 1795, when they set up homes a few miles apart in Somerset. Coleridge Cottage, now owned by...
Victoria (Vita) Sackville-West was born in 1892 at Knole House (now owned by the National Trust), near Sevenoaks in Kent, and she spent much of her early life there. In 1913 she married diplomat Harold Nicholson and in 1930 they purchased Sissinghurst Castle, a run-down...
Wilfred Owen is regarded as the greatest of the First World War poets. His poems attempt to educate the innocent public about the horrors of the war and the cynicism of the politicians directing it. Although Owen strenuously opposed the war, he showed great gallantry...
Anthony Trollope was a prolific Victorian novelist, best known for The Chronicles of Barsetshire (six novels, 1855-67) that describe the social affairs of the fictional county of Barsetshire. Two of the novels were splendidly adapted by the BBC as The Barchester Chronicles (1982), with the...
Arnold Bennett was born in 1867 in Hanley, Staffordshire and is permanently linked with that area of England (popularly known as the Potteries). His most famous novel, Anna of the Five Towns (1902), draws on his experience of the Potteries. Other noteworthy books include The...
WH Auden was one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century. He’s probably best known for The Age of Anxiety (1947), a long poem about the struggle to find meaning in an industrialized world. Auden’s popularity has increased in recent years, as evidenced by...
Beatrix Potter first visited the Lake District in 1882 and fell in love with it right away. Following the success of her first three books – The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903) and The Tailor of Gloucester (1903) –...
HG Wells was born in 1866 in south London. He began writing at an early age and his first four novels established his reputation as the “Father of Science Fiction”: The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The...