Dissenter and Christian preacher, John Bunyan was born in Elstow in 1628 and is most famous for his allegorical work Pilgrim’s Progress. He was a man who stood by his beliefs and was imprisoned several times for preaching without a license and he remains one of the more enigmatic figures of English history. Bunyan professed to being brought up in modest circumstances, ...
American poet Helen Hunt Jackson was born in 1830 and is most well-known for her tireless activism on the part of the indigenous Native American population. Brought up in Massachusetts by Unitarian parents, she was orphaned at an early age and sent to live with her aunt. She was educated initially at Ipswich Seminary and then went on to board ...
Born in 1797, George Moses Horton was a slave poet who was brought up in the Southern United States and was the first black American to have his work published in the region. He took his surname from plantation owner William Horton, growing up on an estate in North Carolina and then a tobacco farm in Chatham County. His education ...
Bhartrihari was a writer who lived through the second half of the fifth century. He wrote in the sacred Hindu language called Sanskrit and is believed to have produced at least two important pieces of work which became extremely influential. One was the definitive guide to Sanskrit grammar which portrayed a holistic view of the language spoken at that time. The second ...
If ever there were an American poet that could be immortalised by the writing of a single poem then Clement Clarke Moore was such a man. He will not have known it at the time that he wrote A Visit from St Nicholas purely to amuse his own children but this poem, when published in a New York newspaper just before the ...
