Born in Birkenhead near Liverpool in 1902, poet A.S.J. Tessimond is perhaps not the most well-known British poets of the 20th Century and suffered for most of his life from bipolar disorder. His father was known to be a member of the Church Association and once gave a lecture on the influence of poetry which may have led the young Tessimond ...
Ada Cambridge was a prolific novelist and poet who was born in Norfolk in 1844 and many of her works were published in serial form in Australian and British newspapers under the title AC. Her father was what would be considered a gentleman farmer at the time and she was educated at home by a governess, something which she did not ...
Born in 1747 in Derbyshire, Anna Seward was a poet and writer of some renown, particularly for women in that era. Her father was a clergyman and she was the only one of four children to reach adulthood. She did not attend school but was tutored by her father and was introduced to classical works such as Milton at a very ...
William Langland was a 14th century English poet who is most famous for his epic tale of The Vision of Piers Plowman, a long poem written in unrhymed, alliterative verse. Critics have compared this work favourably with the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer who was alive at about the same time. The main problem with this piece of work though is the ...
Ali Sardar Jafri’s life spanned most of the 20th century and he was a multi-award winning Indian poet, writing in Urdu, while also working as a literary critic and occasional lyricist for the Indian film industry. Because of his strong political activities he got on the wrong side of the university authorities while studying at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) during the ...
Often referred to as “Willie” Soutar, he was a renowned Scottish poet of the early 20th century who wrote in both English and a variant of the Scottish language called “Braid Scots”. Besides writing a great deal of standard form poetry Soutar was well known for his epigrams – short, often humorous or satirical statements that were written to engage a ...
Alice Meynell was an English poet who, following her marriage to a Catholic newspaper publisher and editor, followed in his line of work becoming a successful editor and critic in her own right. She came late to the world of published poetry; she was aged 28 before her first collection was seen. It was called Preludes and attracted the favourable attention of ...
Alice was the elder of the famous American Cary sisters who were so close that they wrote much of their poetry together during the19th century. They published their work jointly in the first instance but once the pair had established themselves as significant writers of that time they published separate collections and both went on to achieve success as individual writers despite ...
Born in Trieste in 1883, Umberto Saba was a poet and novel writer who would grow up to be one of the major Italian literary influences of the 20th Century. His father converted to Judaism to marry his mother shortly before Saba was born but was quick to abandon the family, leaving Saba to be brought up by a Catholic wet-nurse. This ...
Born in 1905 in Prague, Vladimir Holan was a Czechoslovakian poet noted for his abstract language and dark visions of the world. He spent much of his childhood outside the capital in the small town of Podoli where he would walk three miles to school every day to be instructed at an Augustan convent. The family returned to Prague when Holan was ...
