Author and poet Henry David Thoreau was born into an unremarkable New England family in Massachusetts in 1817. He is undoubtedly one of the most famous Americans of the 19th century, an ardent philosopher, abolitionist, and historian. His interests were many and varied and his best known literary works, Walden and Civil Disobedience, have had […]

English lyric poet and politician, Andrew Marvell was born in 1621 in East Riding, Yorkshire. His father was a vicar and the family moved to Hull when he became a lecturer at Holy Trinity Church there. Initially tutored at a Hull grammar school, Andrew Marvell, at the age of 13, went to Cambridge to study. […]

Kamala Das was born in 1934 in India into an artistic family with a father who was managing editor of the Daily Mathrubhum and a mother who was a much respected poetess. She is noted for her honest poems and other writings that cover a wide range of issues. She was born in Kerala where […]

A lyric poet and cleric who lived through the turmoil of the English Civil War, Robert Herrick was born in Cheapside in London in 1591. When he was just one year old, his father died after a fall from a window. The young Herrick was educated at the Merchant Taylor’s School before, at the age […]

French poet Arthur Rimbaud was born in 1854 in the Ardennes and went on to influence many writers and singers of the 20th century including Dylan Thomas, Nabokov and even Bob Dylan. Reputed to have little moral sense and a deep restlessness, he began writing poems at a very early age but stopped suddenly when […]