Born in Middlesex in 1664, Matthew Prior was a poet and experienced diplomat and is noted for the range of work that he produced from humorous poems to more ambitious epic works. Although he was largely successful as a poet, he often treated it as a pleasurable pastime rather than a true calling.

His father was a joiner and moved to London shortly after Prior’s birth, later sending his son to Westminster School. When Prior’s father died, he was given over to his uncle and received his first taste of patronage when Lord Dorset offered to pay for his continuing education at Westminster. Prior later took up a scholarship, against the wishes of his new patron, to attend St John’s College.

Prior made friends with Charles Montague and would collaborate on satirical works such as City Mouse and Country Mouse. He left college …

Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto was born in Reggio Emilia in 1474. His father was the commander of the city and Ariosto was the eldest of ten children. Although he was to study law in his youth, as was the practice of the day, the young man quickly developed an enduring love of poetry and learned about the classics for a while under the tutelage Gregorio da Spoleto.

As the oldest son of the family, Ariosto was compelled to take over the role of patriarch after the death of his father. Whilst most of his time was taken up with this, the young poet managed to write a few pieces that finally came to the attention of the cardinal who decided to offer patronage. Ariosto was taken on in the cardinal’s household – a situation that wasn’t altogether beneficial as the poet was …

Born in Petrograd in 1915, Konstantin Simonov was known largely for his moral boosting poetry written during the Second World War. His father was a member of the Tzar’s army but left for Poland after the 1917 revolution, dying there a few years later. Simonov spent much of his childhood near Moscow in the town of Ryazan where his stepfather worked for a military academy.

Like many children in the new Russia of the time, Simonov undertook his basic education and then went onto a factory school where he began learning how to operate a lathe. His family headed for Moscow in 1931 and the young Simonov, now with an engineering qualification, went to work in a factory, staying there for the next four years.

Simonov developed a love of poetry from early on and produced his first works for publication in local …

Born in London in 1802, Letitia Elizabeth Landon went on to become a writer and poet who published under the initials L.E.L. for much of her short life. She was hailed by the likes of Elizabeth Barrett Browning as one of the leading lights of women’s poetry in the 19th century.

As a child she exhibited a voracious appetite for knowledge and learned to read from an early age. Landon was born into a reasonably well off family for the time which meant she could go to school at the age of five.

Landon attended the famous school of Mrs Rowden before the family moved out to the country where she was taught at home. Whilst her cousin Elizabeth was well educated, it seemed that the young Letitia had such a thirst for knowledge and learning that she soon moved ahead of …

Born in London in 1920, Leo Marks gained fame as a cryptographer during World War II but was also a poet and a screenwriter of some repute later in life. Marks was educated at St Paul’s School in London but did not go to University as many of his peers did.

He was the son of a bookseller and became interested in code breaking and cyphers when his father showed him a copy of the Edgar Allan Poe work The Gold Bug, a story about solving clues to find a buried treasure.

After that, his father used to put codes inside the books in his shop which the young Marks would pick up and try to decipher. After the outbreak of war, he was conscripted and because of his ability with codes was trained as a cryptographer though he was not entirely popular …