Lesbia Harford Poems

 

Lesbia Harford was an Australian poet and political activist.  She was also the author of a single novel called The Invaluable Mystery, but this was not published until 1987 which was sixty years after her death. She was born Lesbia Venner Keogh on the 9th April 1891 in the Victorian town of Brighton which is a suburb of Melbourne.  Her father was a struggling ...

Lesya Ukrainka Poems

 

Lesya Ukrainka was one of Ukraine’s best known poets who also wrote plays.  She was politically active, especially on feminist issues. She was born Larysa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka on the 25th February 1871 in the Ukrainian town of Novohrad-Volynskyi.  Her mother was a writer who used the pseudonym Olena Pchilka to write poetry and short stories aimed at children and it seems likely that she ...

Leslie Coulson Poems

 

Leslie Coulson was an English First World War poet and journalist who tragically lost his life on the battlefields of the Western Front. He was born on the 19th July 1889 in the Kilburn district of London, the son of a Sunday Chronicle journalist.  After a boarding school education in Norfolk he followed his father into newspapers, obtaining a post as a junior ...

Lady Jane Wilde Poems

 

Lady Jane Wilde was a 19th century, pro-Irish nationalist poet who used the pseudonym "Speranza".  Although famous in her own right one of her children was the renowned poet and playwright Oscar Wilde. She was born Jane Francesca Agnes Elgee on the 27th December 1821 in Wexford, the daughter of a lawyer.  Her ancestors were originally Italian.  As she grew up she became ...

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Poems

 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an aristocratic English writer who is chiefly remembered for her poetry and a large catalogue of letters.  These were of the travelogue variety, documenting her time in the Ottoman Empire while she was married to the British ambassador to Turkey.  It was unusual for a woman at that time to write in such detail about the “Muslim ...