Perhaps one of the most well-known writers of the late 19th century, Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 and his appeal has endured to the present day. Known mainly for his short satirical statements and cutting wit as well as the seminal novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, he was also a prolific […]

Mirza Ghalib was the pen name of Urdu poet Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan who was born in colonial India in 1797. Considered one of the most popular and influential poets of the later days of the Persian Mughal Era before British rule took full hold, he wrote several ghazals – poetic forms that incorporate rhyming […]

A poet with suicidal tendencies and a literary subtlety that outweighed many of her contemporaries, Sara Teasdale was born in 1884 in Missouri. From an early age she suffered from poor health and it wasn’t until she was 14 that she began to attend school. She received great exposure for her lyrical poems that seemed […]

Son of the poet and publisher Louisa Lawson, Henry Lawson was born in New South Wales, Australia, in 1867. He went to school at Eurunduree but began to lose his hearing due to an ear infection and by the time he was fourteen was completely deaf. At a Catholic school in Mudgee, Lawson began to […]

American writer and editor Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois in 1878, and went on to win no less than two Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry. A colorful early life saw him leave school at the age of 13 to work odd jobs – delivering milk, harvesting ice, and even shining shoes. It was […]