Samuel Butler was a 17th century English poet who favoured a satirical, sometimes humorous style of writing. He is best known for an epic piece of work that cruelly satirised sectarian religions. Hudibras was begun in 1658 and two further parts were written and published, the final section not been completed until 20 years after it had begun. The diarist Samuel Pepys, ...
Sir Francis Bacon is remembered by historians as a great philosopher, scientist and politician. His life seemed to be a constant series of peaks and troughs where he was, at one time, the Lord Chancellor of England and therefore the most powerful man in the land. But then there were times when he was mired in debt and, in fact, he had ...
Sir John Suckling lived a very short life in the first half of the 17th century and has been described, by many historians, in terms such as “cavalier playboy” or “fop”. He was much more than that though and, at the tender age of 18, was sent abroad in an ambassadorial role by King Charles I. He also carried out military service ...
Born in 1802 in Keswick, Sara Coleridge was the daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and an accomplished writer in her own right. She was brought up under the literary security of Greta Hall, brushing shoulders with the Wordsworths and their son William who lived nearby, and this environment seems to have been the prime source of her education. Coleridge was largely ...
Born in 1897 in the Essex town of Ilford, Ruth Pitter was an English poet who for most of the 20th Century contributed to the literary landscape of the United Kingdom. Her life brought her into contact with such literary greats as C. S. Lewis, George Orwell and even Hilaire Belloc, who helped her to publish her first ...
