The Oxford Book Of English Verse
''The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900'' is an anthology of English poetry, edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch, that had a very substantial influence on popular taste and perception of poetry for at least a generation. It was published by Oxford University Press in 1900; in its india-paper form it was carried widely around the British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ... and in war as a 'knapsack book'. It sold close to 500,000 copies in its first edition. In 1939, the editor revised it, deleting several poems (especially from the late 19th century) that he regretted including and adding instead many poems published before 1901 as well as poems published up to 1918.Of the original edition nearly half a million copies were issued, according to the introdu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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English Poetry
This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including Republican Ireland after December 1922. The earliest surviving English poetry, written in Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English, may have been composed as early as the 7th century. The earliest English poetry The earliest known English poem is a hymn on the creation; Bede attributes this to Cædmon ( fl. 658–680), who was, according to legend, an illiterate herdsman who produced extemporaneous poetry at a monastery at Whitby. This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Much of the poetry of the period is difficult to date, or even to arrange chronologically; for example, estimates for the date of the great epic ''Beowulf'' range from AD 608 right through to AD 1000, and there has never been anything even approaching a consensus. It is pos ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Allan Cunningham (author)
Allan Cunningham (7 December 178430 October 1842) was a Scottish poet and author. Life He was born at Keir, near Dalswinton, Dumfries and Galloway, and first worked as a stonemason's apprentice. His father was a neighbour of Robert Burns at Ellisland, and Allan with his brother James visited James Hogg, the "Ettrick shepherd", who became a friend to both. Cunningham's other brothers were the naval surgeon Peter Miller Cunningham (1789–1864) and the poet, Thomas Mounsey Cunningham (1776–1834). Cunningham gave his leisure to reading and writing imitations of old Scottish ballads. In 1809 he collected old ballads for Robert Hartley Cromek's ''Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song''; he sent in, however, poems of his own, which the editor inserted, even though he may have suspected their real authorship. It gained for him the friendship of Walter Scott and James Hogg. In 1810 Cunningham went to London, where he worked as a parliamentary reporter and journalist until ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bryan Waller Procter
Bryan Waller Procter (pseud. Barry Cornwall) (21 November 17875 October 1874) was an English poet who served as a Commissioner in Lunacy. Life and career Born at Leeds, Yorkshire, he was educated at Harrow School, where he had for contemporaries Lord Byron and Robert Peel. On leaving school he was placed in the office of a solicitor at Calne, Wiltshire, remaining there until about 1807, when he returned to London to study law. By the death of his father in 1816 he became possessed of a small property, and soon after entered into partnership with a solicitor; but in 1820 the partnership was dissolved, and he began to write under the pseudonym of "Barry Cornwall". After his marriage in 1824 to Miss Skepper, daughter of Mrs Basil Montague, he returned to his profession as a conveyancer, and was called to the bar in 1831. In the following year he was appointed metropolitan commissioner of lunacy—an appointment annually renewed until his election as one of the Commissioners in L ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bret Harte
Bret Harte (; born Francis Brett Hart; August 25, 1836 – May 5, 1902) was an American short story writer and poet best remembered for short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. In a career spanning more than four decades, he also wrote poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials and magazine sketches. As he moved from California to the eastern U.S. and later to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories, but his Gold Rush tales have been those most often reprinted, adapted and admired. Biography Early life Harte was born in 1836 in New York's capital city of Albany. He was named after his great-grandfather, Francis Brett. When he was young, his father, Henry, changed the spelling of the family name from Hart to Harte. Henry's father was Bernard Hart, an Orthodox Jewish immigrant who flourished as a merchant, becoming one of the founders of the New York Stock Exchange. Bret's mother, Eliza ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bliss Carman
William Bliss Carman (April 15, 1861 – June 8, 1929) was a Canadian poet who lived most of his life in the United States, where he achieved international fame. He was acclaimed as Canada's poet laureate during his later years. In Canada, Carman is classed as one of the Confederation Poets, a group which also included Charles G.D. Roberts (his cousin), Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. "Of the group, Carman had the surest lyric touch and achieved the widest international recognition. But unlike others, he never attempted to secure his income by novel writing, popular journalism, or non-literary employment. He remained a poet, supplementing his art with critical commentaries on literary ideas, philosophy, and aesthetics." Life William Bliss Carman was born on April 15, 1861 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. "Bliss" was his mother's maiden name. He was the great grandson of United Empire Loyalists who fled to Nova Scotia after the American Revolution, settling in New ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ben Jonson
Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays ''Every Man in His Humour'' (1598), '' Volpone, or The Fox'' (c. 1606), '' The Alchemist'' (1610) and '' Bartholomew Fair'' (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. "He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I." Jonson was a classically educated, well-read and cultured man of the English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of the Caroline era (1625–1642)."Ben Jonson", ''Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge'', volume 10, p. 388. His ancestor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aubrey Thomas De Vere
Aubrey Thomas de Vere (10 January 181420 January 1902) was an Irish poet and critic. Life Aubrey Thomas Hunt de Vere was born at Curraghchase House (now in ruins) at Curraghchase, Kilcornan, County Limerick, the third son of Sir Aubrey de Vere, 2nd Baronet (1788–1846) and his wife Mary Spring Rice, daughter of Stephen Edward Rice (d.1831) and Catherine Spring, of Mount Trenchard, Co. Limerick. He was a nephew of Lord Monteagle, a younger brother of Sir Stephen de Vere, 4th Baronet and a cousin of Lucy Knox. His sister Ellen married Robert O'Brien, the brother of William Smith O'Brien. In 1832, his father dropped the original surname 'Hunt' by royal licence, assuming the surname 'de Vere'. He was strongly influenced by his friendship with the astronomer Sir William Rowan Hamilton, through whom he came to a knowledge and reverent admiration for Wordsworth and Coleridge. He was educated privately at home and in 1832 entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he read Kant and Coleridg ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arthur Hugh Clough
Arthur Hugh Clough ( ; 1 January 181913 November 1861) was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to Florence Nightingale. He was the brother of suffragist Anne Clough and father of Blanche Athena Clough who both became principals of Newnham College, Cambridge. Life Arthur Clough was born in Liverpool to James Butler Clough, a cotton merchant of Welsh descent, and Anne Perfect, from Pontefract in Yorkshire. James Butler Clough was a younger son of a landed gentry family that had been living at Plas Clough in Denbighshire since 1567. In 1822 the family moved to the United States, and Clough's early childhood was spent mainly in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1828 Clough and his older brother Charles Butler Clough (later head of the Clough family of Llwyn Offa, Flintshire and Boughton House, Chester, a magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant) returned to England to attend school in Chester. Holidays were often spent at Beaumaris. In 1829 Clough began attending Ru ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arthur Christopher Benson
Arthur Christopher Benson, (24 April 1862 – 17 June 1925) was an English essayist, poet and academic, and the 28th Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. He wrote the lyrics of Edward Elgar’s '' Coronation Ode'', including the words of the patriotic song "Land of Hope and Glory" (1902). His literary criticism, poems, and volumes of essays were highly regarded. He was also noted as an author of ghost stories. Early life and family Benson was born on 24 April 1862 at Wellington College, Berkshire as one of six children of Edward White Benson (1829–1896), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1883 to 1896 and, before that, the first headmaster of the college. His mother, Mary Sidgwick Benson, was a sister of the philosopher Henry Sidgwick. Benson's literary family included his brothers Edward Frederic Benson, best remembered for his ''Mapp and Lucia'' novels, and Robert Hugh Benson, a priest of the Church of England before converting to Roman Catholicism, who wrote many popular ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn (; bapt. 14 December 1640 – 16 April 1689) was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her into legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, she declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anthony Munday
Anthony Munday (or Monday) (1560?10 August 1633) was an English playwright and miscellaneous writer. He was baptized on 13 October 1560 in St Gregory by St Paul's, London, and was the son of Christopher Munday, a stationer, and Jane Munday. He was one of the chief predecessors of Shakespeare in English dramatic composition, and wrote plays about Robin Hood. He is believed to be the primary author of ''Sir Thomas More'', on which he is believed to have collaborated with Henry Chettle, Thomas Heywood, William Shakespeare, and Thomas Dekker. Biography He was once thought to have been born in 1553, because the monument to him in the church of St Stephen Coleman Street, since destroyed, stated that at the time of his death he was eighty years old. From the inscription we likewise learn that he was "a citizen and draper". In 1589 he was living in the city, and dates his translation of ''The History of Palmendos'' "from my house in Cripplegate". That he carried on the business of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Anna Laetitia Barbauld (, by herself possibly , as in French, Aikin; 20 June 1743 – 9 March 1825) was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and author of children's literature. A " woman of letters" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career that spanned more than half a century. She was a noted teacher at the Palgrave Academy and an innovative writer of works for children. Her primers provided a model for more than a century. Her essays showed it was possible for a woman to be engaged in the public sphere; other women authors such as Elizabeth Benger emulated her. Barbauld's literary career spanned numerous periods in British literary history: her work promoted the values of the enlightenment and of sensibility, while her poetry made a founding contribution to the development of British Romanticism. Barbauld was also a literary critic. Her anthology of 18th-century novels helped to establish the canon as it is known to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |