Edward Lear (1812-88) was a painter and musician of great repute. These days he’s remembered more as an author, especially for his nonsense collections of poems and songs. A Book of Nonsense (1846) is a collection of limericks, the format of which he was probably...
Izaak Walton’s name is forever associated with his most famous book, The Compleat Angler (1653-76): a celebration of fishing in prose and verse. He also wrote biographies, including one of his friend John Donne. Walton was born in Stafford (140 miles northwest of London) around...
Charles Kingsley (1819-75) was an Anglican priest. In 1844 he was appointed Rector of Eversley in Hampshire. In 1859 he became chaplain to Queen Victoria and in 1861 private tutor to her eldest son, the future Edward VII. He was a canon of Chester Cathedral...
John Donne – born in London in 1572 – is remembered as a trail-blazing poet, but in his lifetime he was most famous for his sermons and for being the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Today he’s regarded as the most significant metaphysical poet...
“If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people.” – Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf Basics Virginia Woolf was undoubtedly one of the most important English writers of the 20th Century. In a BBC poll of 82 non-British critics, two of...
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is one of England’s greatest poets. He made his reputation in his early 20’s, especially with the publication of An Essay on Criticism (1711). The poem includes lines that are still familiar: for example “To err is human; to forgive, divine”, “A...
Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564, about two months before Shakespeare, and his work had a great effect on the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. In particular, Marlowe’s influence can be divined in numerous Shakespeare plays including As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice,...
Ted Hughes (1930-98) was one of Britain’s greatest post-war writers and Poet Laureate from 1964 until his death. One of his most successful books, The Iron Man (1968) was the inspiration for The Who's 1989 rock opera of the same name and for the Warner Brothers animated film...
Philip Larkin (1922-85) was one of England’s leading 20th Century poets. In 2008 The Times newspaper rated him Britain’s greatest post-war writer. His reputation was established by the collection The Whitsun Weddings (1964), which includes the poem of the same name and An Arundel Tomb....
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) was, in his time, second only to Dickens in popularity. These days, however, his reputation rests almost entirely on the enduring popularity of his satirical novel Vanity Fair (1848). There were movie adaptations in 1932 with Myrna Loy, 1935 (titled Becky...