The Oxford Book of English Verse most commonly means the Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1900 edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch

Arthur Quiller-Couch

Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch was a Cornish writer, who published under the pen name of Q. He is primarily remembered for the monumental Oxford Book Of English Verse 1250–1900 , and for his literary criticism...

, an anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 of English poetry

English poetry

The history of English poetry stretches from the middle of the 7th century to the present day. Over this period, English poets have written some of the most enduring poems in Western culture, and the language and its poetry have spread around the globe. Consequently, the term English poetry is...

 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

Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

 in 1900; in its india-paper form it was carried widely around the British Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 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 poems published up to 1918.

The second edition is now available online.

Various successors have subtly differentiated titles. See Oxford poetry anthologies

Oxford poetry anthologies

The Oxford University Press published a long series of poetry anthologies, dealing in particular with British poetry but not restricted to it, after the success of the Oxford Book of English Verse ....

.

The fictional lawyer Horace Rumpole is known to have this book near at hand at almost all times, and he quotes from many of its poems both in and out of court.

Dedication
"To the President and Fellows and Scholars of Trinity College Oxford / a house of learning; ancient, liberal, humane, and my most kindly nurse"

Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1918 (1939 edition)

Revision also by Quiller-Couch. Poets included were:

Lascelles Abercrombie

Lascelles Abercrombie

Lascelles Abercrombie was a British poet and literary critic, one of the "Dymock poets"...

 - Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison

Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was a man of letters, eldest son of Lancelot Addison...

 - AE

George William Russell

George William Russell who wrote under the pseudonym Æ , was an Irish nationalist, writer, editor, critic, poet, and painter. He was also a mystical writer, and centre of a group of followers of theosophy in Dublin, for many years.-Organisor:Russell was born in Lurgan, County Armagh...

 - Mark Akenside

Mark Akenside

Mark Akenside was an English poet and physician.Akenside was born at Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the son of a butcher. He was slightly lame all his life from a wound he received as a child from his father's cleaver...

 - William Alexander, Earl of Stirling - William Allingham

William Allingham

William Allingham was an Irish man of letters and a poet.-Biography:He was born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland and was the son of the manager of a local bank who was of English descent...

 - Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...

 - Sir Robert Ayton - Lady Grizel Baillie

Grizel Baillie

Lady Grisell Baillie was a Scottish songwriter.- Biography :The eldest daughter of Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth, afterwards earl of Marchmont, Lady Grisell Baillie was born at Redbraes Castle, Berwickshire. When she was twelve years old, she carried letters from her father to Scottish patriot...

 - Joanna Baillie

Joanna Baillie

Joanna Baillie was a Scottish poet and dramatist. Baillie was very well known during her lifetime and, though a woman, intended her plays not for the closet but for the stage. Admired both for her literary powers and her sweetness of disposition, she hosted a brilliant literary society in her...

 - Frances Bannerman

Frances Bannerman

Frances Bannerman was a Canadian poet. She was the daughter of Lieutenant-Governor A.G. Jones.Her best-known poem is "An Upper Chamber", which is included in the Oxford Book of English Verse.She was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia and died in Torquay, England...

 - Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Anna Laetitia Barbauld was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and children's author.A "woman of letters" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career at a time when female professional writers were rare...

 - John Barbour - Richard Barnefield - William Barnes

William Barnes

William Barnes was an English writer, poet, minister, and philologist. He wrote over 800 poems, some in Dorset dialect and much other work including a comprehensive English grammar quoting from more than 70 different languages.-Life:He was born at Rushay in the parish of Bagber, Dorset, the son of...

 - James Beattie

James Beattie (writer)

Professor James Beattie FRSE was a Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher.He was born the son of a shopkeeper and small farmer at Laurencekirk in the Mearns, and educated at Aberdeen University. In 1760, he was appointed Professor of moral philosophy there as a result of the interest of his...

 - Francis Beaumont

Francis Beaumont

Francis Beaumont was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher....

 - Sir John Beaumont - Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Thomas Lovell Beddoes was an English poet, dramatist and physician.- Biography :Born in Clifton, Bristol, England, he was the son of Dr. Thomas Beddoes, a friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Anna, sister of Maria Edgeworth. He was educated at Charterhouse and Pembroke College, Oxford...

 - Henry Charles Beeching

Henry Charles Beeching

Henry Charles Beeching was an English clergyman, author and poet. He was educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford. He took holy orders in 1882, and began work in a Liverpool parish. He later became Dean of Norwich. He gave the Clark Lecture in 1900 on The history of...

 - Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn was a prolific dramatist of the English Restoration and was one of the first English professional female writers. Her writing contributed to the amatory fiction genre of British literature.-Early life:...

 - Hilaire Belloc

Hilaire Belloc

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...

 - Arthur Christopher Benson - Laurence Binyon

Laurence Binyon

Robert Laurence Binyon was an English poet, dramatist and art scholar. His most famous work, For the Fallen, is well known for being used in Remembrance Sunday services....

 - Richard Doddridge Blackmore - William Blake

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

 - Edmund Blunden

Edmund Blunden

Edmund Charles Blunden, MC was an English poet, author and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was also a reviewer for English publications and an academic in Tokyo and later Hong Kong...

 - Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt was an English poet and writer. He was born at Petworth House in Sussex, and served in the Diplomatic Service from 1858 to 1869. His mother was a Catholic convert and he was educated at Twyford School, Stonyhurst and at St Mary's College, Oscott...

 - Gordon Bottomley

Gordon Bottomley

Gordon Bottomley was an English poet, known particularly for his verse dramas. He was partly disabled by tubercular illness. His main influences were the later Victorian Romantic poets, the Pre-Raphaelites and William Morris.- Background :...

 - Francis William Bourdillon

Francis William Bourdillon

Francis William Bourdillon was a British poet and translator.-Life:Born in Runcorn, Cheshire, Bourdillon was educated at Worcester College, Oxford. He acted as tutor to the sons of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein...

 - William Lisle Bowles

William Lisle Bowles

William Lisle Bowles was an English poet and critic.-Life and career:He was born at King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, where his father was vicar. At the age of fourteen he entered Winchester College, the headmaster at the time being Dr Joseph Warton...

 - Mark Alexander Boyd

Mark Alexander Boyd

Mark Alexander Boyd was a Scottish poet and soldier of fortune. He was born in Ayrshire, Scotland. His father was from Pinkell, Carrick in Ayrshire. Boyd left Scotland for France as a young man. There he studied civil law...

 - Nicholas Breton

Nicholas Breton

Nicholas Breton , English poet and novelist, belonged to an old family settled at Layer Breton, Essex.-Life:...

 - Robert Bridges

Robert Bridges

Robert Seymour Bridges, OM, was a British poet, and poet laureate from 1913 to 1930.-Personal and professional life:...

 - Alexander Brome

Alexander Brome

Alexander Brome was an English poet.He was by profession an attorney, and was the author of many drinking songs and of satirical verses in favor of the Royalists and in opposition to the Rump Parliament...

 - Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke

Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier...

 - William Broome

William Broome

William Broome was an English poet and translator. He was born in Haslington, near Crewe, Cheshire and died in Bath.He was educated at Eton and Cambridge, entered the Church, and became rector of Sturston in Suffolk, and later Pulham in Norfolk and Eye in Suffolk...

 - Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë

Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...

 - Thomas Edward Brown

Thomas Edward Brown

Thomas Edward Brown , commonly referred to as T.E. Brown was a Manx poet, scholar and theologian.Brown was born at Douglas, Isle of Man. His father, the Rev. Robert Brown, shared with the parish schoolmaster in tutoring the clever boy until, at the age of fifteen, he was entered at King William's...

 - William Browne of Tavistock - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...

 - Robert Browning

Robert Browning

Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...

 - Michael Bruce - William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post.-Youth and education:...

 - John Bunyan

John Bunyan

John Bunyan was an English Christian writer and preacher, famous for writing The Pilgrim's Progress. Though he was a Reformed Baptist, in the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on 29 August.-Life:In 1628,...

 - Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

 - George Gordon, Lord Byron - Jeremiah John Callanan - Thomas Campbell - Thomas Campian - Thomas Carew

Thomas Carew

Thomas Carew was an English poet, among the 'Cavalier' group of Caroline poets.-Biography:He was the son of Sir Matthew Carew, master in chancery, and his wife, Alice daughter of Sir John Rivers, Lord Mayor of the City of London and widow of Ingpen...

 - Henry Carey

Henry Carey

Henry Carey may refer to:*Henry Charles Carey , American economist*Henry Carey , dramatist and songwriter*Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon , politician, general and potential illegitimate son of Henry VIII of England*Henry Carey, 1st Earl of Dover Henry Carey may refer to:*Henry Charles Carey...

 - Bliss Carman

Bliss Carman

Bliss Carman FRSC 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....

 - William Cartwright - George Chapman

George Chapman

George Chapman was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets...

 - Thomas Chatterton

Thomas Chatterton

Thomas Chatterton was an English poet and forger of pseudo-medieval poetry. He died of arsenic poisoning, either from a suicide attempt or self-medication for a venereal disease.-Childhood:...

 - Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...

 - G. K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction....

 - John Clare

John Clare

John Clare was an English poet, born the son of a farm labourer who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be among...

 - Arthur Hugh Clough

Arthur Hugh Clough

Arthur Hugh Clough was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to ground-breaking nurse Florence Nightingale...

 - Hartley Coleridge

Hartley Coleridge

David Hartley Coleridge was an English poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher. He was the eldest son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His sister Sara Coleridge was a poet and translator, and his brother Derwent Coleridge was a distinguished scholar and author...

 - Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge was a British novelist and poet, who also wrote essays and reviews. She taught at the London Working Women's College for twelve years from 1895 to 1907...

 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...

 - William Collins

William Collins (poet)

William Collins was an English poet. Second in influence only to Thomas Gray, he was an important poet of the middle decades of the 18th century...

 - Padraic Colum

Padraic Colum

Padraic Colum was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore. He was one of the leading figures of the Celtic Revival.-Early life:...

 - William Congreve - Henry Constable

Henry Constable

Henry Constable was an English poet, son of Sir Robert Constable. He went to St John's College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1580. Becoming a Roman Catholic, he went to Paris, and acted as anagent for the Catholic powers. He died at Liège...

 - William Cornish - William Cory

William Johnson Cory

William Johnson Cory , born William Johnson, was an educator and poet, born at Torrington, and educated at Eton, where he was afterwards a renowned master, nicknamed Tute by his pupils...

 - Charles Cotton

Charles Cotton

Charles Cotton was an English poet and writer, best known for translating the work of Michel de Montaigne from the French, for his contributions to The Compleat Angler, and for the highly influential The Compleat Gamester which has been attributed to him.-Early life:He was born at Beresford Hall...

 - Abraham Cowley

Abraham Cowley

Abraham Cowley was an English poet born in the City of London late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his Works published between 1668 and 1721.-Early life and career:...

 - William Cowper

William Cowper

William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry...

 - George Crabbe

George Crabbe

George Crabbe was an English poet and naturalist.-Biography:He was born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, the son of a tax collector, and developed his love of poetry as a child. In 1768, he was apprenticed to a local doctor, who taught him little, and in 1771 he changed masters and moved to Woodbridge...

 - Richard Crashaw

Richard Crashaw

Richard Crashaw , English poet, styled "the divine," was part of the Seventeenth-century Metaphysical School of poets.-Life:...

 - Allan Cunningham - Robert Cunninghame-Grahame of Gartmore

Robert Cunninghame-Grahame of Gartmore

Robert Graham , who took the name Bontine in 1770 and Cunninghame Graham in 1796, was a Scottish politician and poet. He is now remembered for a poem If doughty deeds my lady please, which was later set to music by his great-great-grandson, Rev...

 - Henry Cust

Henry Cust

Henry John "Harry" Cockayne-Cust was an English politician and editor who served as a Member of Parliament for the Unionist Party.-Biography:...

 - Samuel Daniel

Samuel Daniel

Samuel Daniel was an English poet and historian.-Early life:Daniel was born near Taunton in Somerset, the son of a music-master. He was the brother of lutenist and composer John Danyel. Their sister Rosa was Edmund Spenser's model for Rosalind in his The Shepherd's Calendar; she eventually married...

 - George Darley

George Darley

George Darley was an Irish poet, novelist, and critic.He was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity College. Having decided to follow a literary career, in 1820 he went to London, where he published his first poem, Errors of Ecstasie . He also wrote for the London Magazine, under the pseudonym of...

 - Sir William Davenant - John Davidson

John Davidson (poet)

John Davidson was a Scottish poet, playwright and novelist, best known for his ballads. He also did translations from French and German...

 - Sir John Davies - William Henry Davies - F. and W. Davison - Thomas Dekker - Walter De La Mare

Walter de la Mare

Walter John de la Mare , OM CH was an English poet, short story writer and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and the poem "The Listeners"....

 - John Leicester Warren, Lord De Tabley - Aubrey De Vere

Aubrey De Vere

Aubrey De Vere may refer to:* Aubrey de Vere I * Aubrey de Vere II , master chamberlain of England* Aubrey de Vere III , first earl of Oxford* Aubrey de Vere IV , second earl of Oxford...

 - Sir Aubrey de Vere

Aubrey De Vere

Aubrey De Vere may refer to:* Aubrey de Vere I * Aubrey de Vere II , master chamberlain of England* Aubrey de Vere III , first earl of Oxford* Aubrey de Vere IV , second earl of Oxford...

 - Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...

 - Richard Watson Dixon

Richard Watson Dixon

Richard Watson Dixon , English poet and divine, son of Dr James Dixon, a Wesleyan minister.He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and on proceeding to Pembroke College, Oxford, became one of the famous Birmingham Set there who shared with William Morris and Burne-Jones in the...

 - Sydney Dobell - Henry Austin Dobson

Henry Austin Dobson

Henry Austin Dobson , commonly Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist.-Life:He was born at Plymouth, the eldest son of George Clarisse Dobson, a civil engineer, of French descent. When he was about eight, the family moved to Holyhead, and his first school was at Beaumaris in Anglesey...

 - John Donne

John Donne

John Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...

 - Earl of Dorset

Earl of Dorset

Earl of Dorset is a title that has been created at least four times in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1411 for Thomas Beaufort, who was later created Duke of Exeter. The peerages became extinct on his death....

 - Lord Alfred Douglas

Lord Alfred Douglas

Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas , nicknamed Bosie, was a British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde...

 - Ernest Dowson

Ernest Dowson

Ernest Christopher Dowson , born in Lee, London, was an English poet, novelist and writer of short stories, associated with the Decadent movement.- Biography :...

 - Sir Francis Hastings Doyle

Francis Hastings Doyle

Sir Francis Hastings Charles Doyle, 2nd Baronet was a British poet.-Biography:Doyle was born near Tadcaster, Yorkshire, to a military family which produced several distinguished officers, including his father, Major-General Sir Francis Hastings Doyle, 1st Baronet, who was created a baronet in 1828...

 - Michael Drayton

Michael Drayton

Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era.-Early life:He was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham,...

 - William Drummond of Hawthornden

William Drummond of Hawthornden

William Drummond , called "of Hawthornden", was a Scottish poet.-Life:Drummond was born at Hawthornden Castle, Midlothian. His father, John Drummond, was the first laird of Hawthornden; and his mother was Susannah Fowler, sister of William Fowler, poet and courtier...

 - John Dryden

John Dryden

John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...

 - Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux

Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux

Agnes Mary Frances Robinson, known after her first marriage as Agnes-Marie-François Darmesteter, and after her second as Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux born in Leamington Hastings on February 27, 1857 - dead in Aurillac on February 9, 1944, was an English writer and scholar on many subjects connected...

 - George du Maurier

George du Maurier

George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier was a French-born British cartoonist and author, known for his cartoons in Punch and also for his novel Trilby. He was the father of actor Gerald du Maurier and grandfather of the writers Angela du Maurier and Dame Daphne du Maurier...

 - William Dunbar

William Dunbar

William Dunbar was a Scottish poet. He was probably a native of East Lothian, as assumed from a satirical reference in the Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie , where, too, it is hinted that he was a member of the noble house of Dunbar....

 - Thomas D'Urfey

Thomas d'Urfey

Thomas D'Urfey was an English writer and wit. He composed plays, songs, and poetry, in addition to writing jokes. He was an important innovator and contributor in the evolution of the Ballad opera....

 - Richard Edwardes

Richard Edwardes

Richard Edwardes was an English poet and playwright; he was made a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and was master of the singing boys...

 - Ebenezer Elliott

Ebenezer Elliott

Ebenezer Elliott was an English poet, known as the Corn Law rhymer.-Early life:Elliott was born at the New Foundry, Masbrough, in the Parish of Rotherham, Yorkshire. His father, was an extreme Calvinist and a strong Radical, and was engaged in the iron trade...

 - Jane Elliot

Jane Elliot

Jane Elliot is an American actress, known for her role as Tracy Quartermaine, a role she has played on General Hospital and The City ....

 - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

 - Sir George Etherege - Sir Richard Fanshawe - Sir Samuel Ferguson

Samuel Ferguson

Sir Samuel Ferguson was an Irish poet, barrister, antiquarian, artist and public servant. Perhaps the most important Ulster-Scot poet of the 19th century, because of his interest in Irish mythology and early Irish history he can be seen as a forerunner of William Butler Yeats and the other poets...

 - Edward FitzGerald

Edward FitzGerald (poet)

Edward FitzGerald was an English writer, best known as the poet of the first and most famous English translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The spelling of his name as both FitzGerald and Fitzgerald is seen...

 - Thomas Flatman

Thomas Flatman

Thomas Flatman was an English poet and miniature painter. There were several editions of his Poems and Songs . One of his self-portraits is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. A portrait of Charles II is in the Wallace Collection, London...

 - James Elroy Flecker

James Elroy Flecker

James Elroy Flecker was an English poet, novelist and playwright. As a poet he was most influenced by the Parnassian poets.-Biography:...

 - Giles Fletcher

Giles Fletcher

Giles Fletcher was an English poet chiefly known for his long allegorical poem Christ's Victory and Triumph ....

 - John Fletcher

John Fletcher (playwright)

John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...

 - Phineas Fletcher

Phineas Fletcher

Phineas Fletcher was an English poet, elder son of Dr Giles Fletcher, and brother of Giles the younger. He was born at Cranbrook, Kent, and was baptized on 8 April 1582.-Life:...

 - John Ford

John Ford (dramatist)

John Ford was an English Jacobean and Caroline playwright and poet born in Ilsington in Devon in 1586.-Life and work:...

 - George Fox

George Fox

George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...

 - Norman Gale

Norman Gale

For the Wales international rugby union player see Norman Gale Norman Rowland Gale was a poet, story-teller and reviewer, who published many books over a period of nearly fifty years....

 - George Gascoigne

George Gascoigne

George Gascoigne was an English poet, soldier, artist, and unsuccessful courtier. He is considered the most important poet of the early Elizabethan era, following Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and leading to the emergence of Philip Sidney...

 - John Gay

John Gay

John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...

 - Oliver St. John Gogarty

Oliver St. John Gogarty

Oliver Joseph St John Gogarty was an Irish poet, author, otolaryngologist, athlete, politician, and well-known conversationalist, who served as the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce's novel Ulysses....

 - Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...

 - Sir Edmund Gosse - James Graham, Marquis of Montrose - Thomas Gray

Thomas Gray

Thomas Gray was a poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University.-Early life and education:...

 - Robert Greene

Robert Greene (16th century)

Robert Greene was an English author best known for a posthumous pamphlet attributed to him, Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit, widely believed to contain a polemic attack on William Shakespeare. He was born in Norwich and attended Cambridge University, receiving a B.A. in 1580, and an M.A...

 - Julian Grenfell

Julian Grenfell

The Honourable Julian Henry Francis Grenfell DSO , was a British soldier and poet of World War I.-Early life:Julian Grenfell was born at 4 St James's Square, London, the eldest son of William Grenfell, later Baron Desborough, and Ethel Priscilla Fane, daughter of Julian Fane...

 - Fanny Greville - Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke - Gerald Griffin

Gerald Griffin

Gerald Griffin was an Irish novelist, poet and playwright.-Biography:He was born in Limerick, Ireland, the son of a brewer. He went to London in 1823 and became a reporter for one of the daily papers, and later turned to writing fiction...

 - Nicholas Grimald

Nicholas Grimald

Nicholas Grimald , English poet, was born in Huntingdonshire, the son probably of Giovanni Baptista Grimaldi, who had been a clerk in the service of Empson and Dudley in the reign of Henry VII....

 - William Habington

William Habington

William Habington was an English poet.He was born at Hindlip Hall, Worcestershire, and belonged to a well-known Catholic family...

 - Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

 - Bret Harte

Bret Harte

Francis Bret Harte was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.- Life and career :...

 - Stephen Hawes

Stephen Hawes

Stephen Hawes was a popular English poet during the Tudor period who is now little known. He was probably born in Suffolk owing to the commonness of the name in that area and, if his own statement of his age may be trusted, was born about 1474. It has been suggested that he was an illegitimate...

 - Robert Stephen Hawker

Robert Stephen Hawker

Robert Stephen Hawker was an Anglican priest, poet, antiquarian of Cornwall and reputed eccentric. He is best known as the writer of The Song of the Western Men with its chorus line of And shall Trelawny die? / Here's twenty thousand Cornish men / will know the reason why!, which he published...

 - Felicia Dorothea Hemans - William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic and editor, best remembered for his 1875 poem "Invictus".-Life and career:...

 - Robert Henryson

Robert Henryson

Robert Henryson was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500. Counted among the Scots makars, he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renaissance at a time when the culture was on a cusp between medieval and renaissance sensibilities...

 - George Herbert

George Herbert

George Herbert was a Welsh born English poet, orator and Anglican priest.Being born into an artistic and wealthy family, he received a good education that led to his holding prominent positions at Cambridge University and Parliament. As a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, Herbert excelled in...

 - Lord Herbert of Cherbury - Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick (poet)

Robert Herrick was a 17th-century English poet.-Early life:Born in Cheapside, London, he was the seventh child and fourth son of Julia Stone and Nicholas Herrick, a prosperous goldsmith....

 - John Heywood

John Heywood

John Heywood was an English writer known for his plays, poems, and collection of proverbs. Although he is best known as a playwright, he was also active as a musician and composer, though no works survive.-Life:...

 - Thomas Heywood

Thomas Heywood

Thomas Heywood was a prominent English playwright, actor, and author whose peak period of activity falls between late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre.-Early years:...

 - Katharine Tynan Hinkson - Thomas Hoccleve - Ralph Hodgson

Ralph Hodgson

Ralph Hodgson , Order of the Rising Sun ,was an English poet, very popular in his lifetime on the strength of a small number of anthology pieces, such as The Bull. He was one of the more 'pastoral' of the Georgian poets...

 - Thomas Hood

Thomas Hood

Thomas Hood was a British humorist and poet. His son, Tom Hood, became a well known playwright and editor.-Early life:...

 - James Hogg

James Hogg

James Hogg was a Scottish poet and novelist who wrote in both Scots and English.-Early life:James Hogg was born in a small farm near Ettrick, Scotland in 1770 and was baptized there on 9 December, his actual date of birth having never been recorded...

 - Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets...

 - Richard Henry Horne

Richard Henry Horne

Richard Hengist Horne was and English poet and critic most famous for his poem Orion.-Early life:...

 - Lord Houghton

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton FRS was an English poet, patron of literature and politician.-Background and education:...

 - Alfred Edward Housman - Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Henry Howard, KG, , known as The Earl of Surrey although he never was a peer, was an English aristocrat, and one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry.-Life:...

 - William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells was an American realist author and literary critic. Nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters", he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own writings, including the Christmas story "Christmas Every Day" and the novel The Rise of...

 - Leigh Hunt

Leigh Hunt

James Henry Leigh Hunt , best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist, poet and writer.-Early life:Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate, London, where his parents had settled after leaving the USA...

 - Douglas Hyde

Douglas Hyde

Douglas Hyde , known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn , was an Irish scholar of the Irish language who served as the first President of Ireland from 1938 to 1945...

 - Selwyn Image

Selwyn Image

Selwyn Image was a British clergyman, designer, including of stained glass windows and poet....

 - Jean Ingelow

Jean Ingelow

Jean Ingelow , was an English poet and novelist.- Early life and education :Born at Boston, Lincolnshire, she was the daughter of William Ingelow, a banker...

 - Richard Jago

Richard Jago

Richard Jago was an English poet. He was the third son of Richard Jago, Rector of Beaudesert, Warwickshire.-Education:Jago was educated at Solihull School in the West Midlands. One of the school's five houses bears his name...

 - James I of Scotland

James I of Scotland

James I, King of Scots , was the son of Robert III and Annabella Drummond. He was probably born in late July 1394 in Dunfermline as youngest of three sons...

 - Lionel Johnson

Lionel Johnson

Lionel Pigot Johnson was an English poet, essayist and critic. He was born at Broadstairs, and educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, graduating in 1890. He became a Catholic convert in 1891. He lived a solitary life in London, struggling with alcoholism and his repressed...

 - Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

 - Ebenezer Jones

Ebenezer Jones

Ebenezer Jones wrote a good deal of poetry of very unequal merit, but at his best shows a true poetic vein. He was befriended by Browning and Rossetti....

 - Sir William Jones

William Jones (philologist)

Sir William Jones was an English philologist and scholar of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages...

 - Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson

Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...

 - Thomas Jordan - James Joyce

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

 - John Keats

John Keats

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...

 - John Keble

John Keble

John Keble was an English churchman and poet, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement, and gave his name to Keble College, Oxford.-Early life:...

 - Henry Clarence Kendall - John Kenyon

John Kenyon

John Kenyon may refer to:*John Robert Kenyon , British lawyer and academic*John Samuel Kenyon , American linguist*John Philipps Kenyon , English historian...

 - Henry King

Henry King (poet)

-Life:The eldest son of John King, Bishop of London, and his wife Joan Freeman, he was baptised at Worminghall, Buckinghamshire, 16 January 1592. He was educated at Lord Williams's School, Westminster School and in 1608 became a student of Christ Church, Oxford...

 - Charles Kingsley

Charles Kingsley

Charles Kingsley was an English priest of the Church of England, university professor, historian and novelist, particularly associated with the West Country and northeast Hampshire.-Life and character:...

 - Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

 - Charles Lamb - Mary Lamb

Mary Lamb

Mary Ann Lamb , was an English writer, the sister and collaborator of Charles Lamb.-Biography:She was born on 3 December 1764. In 1796, Mary, who had suffered a breakdown from the strain of caring for her family, killed her mother with a kitchen knife, and from then on had to be kept under constant...

 - Walter Savage Landor

Walter Savage Landor

Walter Savage Landor was an English writer and poet. His best known works were the prose Imaginary Conversations, and the poem Rose Aylmer, but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity...

 - Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.- Biography :Lang was born in Selkirk...

 - William Langland

William Langland

William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman.- Life :The attribution of Piers to Langland rests principally on the evidence of a manuscript held at Trinity College, Dublin...

 - Emily Lawless

Emily Lawless

Emily Lawless was an Irish novelist and poet from County Kildare.-Biography :She was born at Lyons House below Lyons Hill, Ardclough, County Kildare. Her grandfather was Valentine Lawless, a member of the United Irishmen and son of a convert from Catholicism to the Church of Ireland. Her father...

 - Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet. The American actress Eva Le Gallienne was his daughter, by his second marriage.-Life and career:...

 - Lady Anne Lindsay - John Gibson Lockhart

John Gibson Lockhart

John Gibson Lockhart , was a Scottish writer and editor. He is best known as the author of the definitive "Life" of Sir Walter Scott...

 - Thomas Lodge

Thomas Lodge

Thomas Lodge was an English dramatist and writer of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.-Early life and education:...

 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...

 - Richard Lovelace

Richard Lovelace

Richard Lovelace was an English poet in the seventeenth century. He was a cavalier poet who fought on behalf of the king during the Civil war. His best known works are To Althea, from Prison, and To Lucasta, Going to the Warres....

 - John Lydgate

John Lydgate

John Lydgate of Bury was a monk and poet, born in Lidgate, Suffolk, England.Lydgate is at once a greater and a lesser poet than John Gower. He is a greater poet because of his greater range and force; he has a much more powerful machine at his command. The sheer bulk of Lydgate's poetic output is...

 - John Lyly

John Lyly

John Lyly was an English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism.-Biography:John Lyly was born in Kent, England, in 1553/1554...

 - Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lord Macaulay - George MacDonald

George MacDonald

George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister.Known particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels, George MacDonald inspired many authors, such as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. It was C.S...

 - Francis Mahony - James Clarence Mangan

James Clarence Mangan

James Clarence Mangan, born James Mangan was an Irish poet.-Early life:Mangan was the son of a former hedge school teacher who took over a grocery business and eventually became bankrupt....

 - Robert Mannyng of Brunne - Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...

 - Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, Parliamentarian, and the son of a Church of England clergyman . As a metaphysical poet, he is associated with John Donne and George Herbert...

 - John Masefield

John Masefield

John Edward Masefield, OM, was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death in 1967...

 - Jasper Mayne

Jasper Mayne

Jasper Mayne was an English clergyman, translator, and a minor poet and dramatist.Mayne was baptized at Hatherleigh, Devon, on 23 November 1604, and educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford...

 - George Meredith

George Meredith

George Meredith, OM was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era.- Life :Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, a son and grandson of naval outfitters. His mother died when he was five. At the age of 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two...

 - Alice Meynell

Alice Meynell

Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell was an English writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet.-Biography:...

 - John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

 - Alexander Montgomerie

Alexander Montgomerie

Alexander Montgomerie , Scottish Jacobean courtier and poet, or makar, born in Ayrshire. He was one of the principal members of the Castalian Band, a circle of poets in the court of James VI in the 1580s which included the king himself. Montgomerie was for a time in favour as one of the king's...

 - Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...

 - T. Sturge Moore - Thomas Osbert Mordaunt

Thomas Osbert Mordaunt

Thomas Osbert Mordaunt , a British officer and poet, is best remembered for his oft-quoted poem `The Call', written during the Seven Years' War of 1756–1763:-References:...

 - William Morris

William Morris

William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

 - Anthony Munday

Anthony Munday

Anthony Munday was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer. The chief interest in Munday for the modern reader lies in his collaboration with Shakespeare and others on the play Sir Thomas More and his writings on Robin Hood.-Biography:He was once thought to have been born in 1553, because...

 - Carolina, Lady Nairne - Thomas Nashe

Thomas Nashe

Thomas Nashe was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist. He was the son of the minister William Nashe and his wife Margaret .-Early life:...

 - Sir Henry Newbolt - Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton was a famous British society beauty, feminist, social reformer, and author of the early and mid nineteenth century.-Youth and Marriage:...

 - Alfred Noyes

Alfred Noyes

Alfred Noyes was an English poet, best known for his ballads, "The Highwayman" and "The Barrel-Organ".-Early years:...

 - John Oldham

John Oldham (poet)

John Oldham was an English satirical poet and translator.-Life and work:Oldham was born in Shipton Moyne, Gloucestershire, the son of John Oldham, a non-conformist minister, and grandson of John Oldham the staunch anti-papist rector of Shipton Moyne and before that of Long Newton in Wiltshire...

 - William Oldys

William Oldys

William Oldys was an English antiquarian and bibliographer.The illegitimate son of Dr William Oldys, chancellor of Lincoln, London was probably his place of birth. His father had held the office of advocate of the admiralty, but lost it in 1693 because he would not prosecute as traitors and...

 - John Boyle O'Reilly

John Boyle O'Reilly

John Boyle O'Reilly was an Irish-born poet, journalist and fiction writer. As a youth in Ireland, he was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, or Fenians, for which he was transported to Western Australia...

 - Orinda - Thomas Otway

Thomas Otway

Thomas Otway was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for Venice Preserv'd, or A Plot Discover'd .-Life:...

 - Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War...

 - Isobel Pagan - Herbert Edward Palmer

Herbert Edward Palmer

Herbert Edward Palmer was an English poet and critic.He was born in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire and educated at Woodhouse Grove School, Birmingham University and Bonn University...

 - Sir Gilbert Parker

Gilbert Parker

Sir Horatio Gilbert George Parker, 1st Baronet PC , known as Gilbert Parker, Canadian novelist and British politician, was born at Camden East, Addington, Ontario, the son of Captain J. Parker, R.A....

 - Thomas Parnell

Thomas Parnell

Thomas Parnell was a poet and clergyman, born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He was a friend of both Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. He participated in the Scriblerus Club, contributing to The Spectator, and he also aided Pope in his translation of The Iliad...

 - Coventry Patmore

Coventry Patmore

Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore was an English poet and critic best known for The Angel in the House, his narrative poem about an ideal happy marriage.-Youth:...

 - Thomas Love Peacock

Thomas Love Peacock

Thomas Love Peacock was an English satirist and author.Peacock was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced each other's work...

 - George Peele

George Peele

George Peele , was an English dramatist.-Life:Peele was christened on 25 July 1556. His father, who appears to have belonged to a Devonshire family, was clerk of Christ's Hospital, and wrote two treatises on bookkeeping...

 - Katherine Philips

Katherine Philips

Katherine Philips was an Anglo-Welsh poet.-Biography:Katherine Philips was the first Englishwoman to enjoy widespread public acclaim as a poet during her lifetime. Born in London, she was daughter of John Fowler, a Presbyterian, and a merchant of Bucklersbury, London. Philips is said to have read...

 - Eden Phillpotts

Eden Phillpotts

Eden Phillpotts was an English author, poet and dramatist. He was born in India, educated in Plymouth, Devon, and worked as an insurance officer for 10 years before studying for the stage and eventually becoming a writer....

 - William Philpot - Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

 - Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

 - Winthrop Mackworth Praed

Winthrop Mackworth Praed

Winthrop Mackworth Praed was an English politician and poet.-Early life:He was born in London. The family name of Praed was derived from the marriage of the poet's great-grandfather to a Cornish heiress. Winthrop's father, William Mackworth Praed, was a serjeant-at-law. His mother belonged to the...

 - Matthew Prior

Matthew Prior

Matthew Prior was an English poet and diplomat.Prior was the son of a Nonconformist joiner at Wimborne Minster, East Dorset. His father moved to London, and sent him to Westminster School, under Dr. Busby. On his father's death, he left school, and was cared for by his uncle, a vintner in Channel...

 - May Probyn

May Probyn

Juliana Mary Louisa Probyn, known as May Probyn , was an English poet.Her poem "Is it nothing to you" is in the Oxford Book of English Verse.She is also included in many other anthologies, such as...

 - Bryan Waller Procter - Francis Quarles

Francis Quarles

Francis Quarles was an English poet most famous for his Emblem book aptly entitled Emblems.-Career:Francis was born in Romford, Essex, , and baptised there on 8 May 1592. He traced his ancestry to a family settled in England before the Norman Conquest with a long history in royal service...

 - Sir Walter Raleigh - Allan Ramsay - Thomas Randolph

Thomas Randolph (poet)

Thomas Randolph was an English poet and dramatist. He was baptized on 18 June 1605 and was the uncle of American colonist William Randolph.-Education:...

 - William Brighty Rands

William Brighty Rands

William Brighty Rands was a British writer and one of the major authors of nursery rhymes of Victorian era.- Biography :...

 - John Reynolds

John Hamilton Reynolds

John Hamilton Reynolds was an English poet, satirist, critic, and playwright. He was a close friend and correspondent of poet John Keats whose letters to Reynolds constitute a significant body of Keats' poetic thought...

 - Ernest Rhys

Ernest Rhys

Ernest Percival Rhys was an English writer, best known for his role as founding editor of the Everyman's Library series of affordable classics. He wrote essays, stories, poetry, novels and plays...

 - Samuel Rogers

Samuel Rogers

Samuel Rogers was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron...

 - Thomas William Rolleston - Christina Georgina Rossetti - Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

 - Henry Rowe - Richard Rowlands

Richard Rowlands

Richard Rowlands , Anglo-Dutch antiquary, whose real name was Verstegen , was the son of a cooper established in East London. His grandfather, Theodore Roland Verstegen, a Dutch emigrant, came from Gelderland to the Kingdom of England c...

 - John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

 - Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset - Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...

 - Alexander Scott - John Scott of Amwell

John Scott of Amwell

John Scott , known as Scott of Amwell, was a poet and writer on the alleviation of poverty.He was a wealthy Quaker who lived at Amwell near Ware in Hertfordshire, England...

 - Sir Walter Scott - William Bell Scott

William Bell Scott

William Bell Scott was a Scottish poet and artist.-Life:The son of Robert Scott , the engraver, and brother of David Scott, the painter, he was born in Edinburgh. While a young man he studied art and assisted his father, and he published verses in the Scottish magazines...

 - Sir Charles Sedley - William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 - John Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...

 - William Shenstone

William Shenstone

William Shenstone was an English poet and one of the earliest practitioners of landscape gardening through the development of his estate, The Leasowes.-Life:...

 - James Shirley

James Shirley

James Shirley was an English dramatist.He belonged to the great period of English dramatic literature, but, in Lamb's words, he "claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so much for any transcendent genius in himself, as that he was the last of a great race, all of whom spoke nearly...

 - Sir Philip Sidney - Dora Sigerson - John Skelton

John Skelton

John Skelton, also known as John Shelton , possibly born in Diss, Norfolk, was an English poet.-Education:...

 - Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart , also known as "Kit Smart", "Kitty Smart", and "Jack Smart", was an English poet. He was a major contributor to two popular magazines and a friend to influential cultural icons like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding. Smart, a high church Anglican, was widely known throughout...

 - Walter Chalmers Smith

Walter Chalmers Smith

Walter Chalmers Smith , was a hymnist, poet and minister of the Free Church of Scotland and is chiefly remembered for his hymn "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise".-Life:...

 - Tobias George Smollett - Charles Hamilton Sorley - Robert Southey

Robert Southey

Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843...

 - Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...

 - Thomas Stanley

Thomas Stanley (author)

Sir Thomas Stanley was an English author and translator.-Life:He was born in Cumberlow, Hertfordshire, the son of Sir Thomas Stanley of Cumberlow, Hertfordshire and his wife, Mary Hammond. Mary was the cousin of Richard Lovelace, and Stanley was educated in company with the son of Edward Fairfax,...

 - James Stephens

James Stephens (author)

James Stephens was an Irish novelist and poet.James Stephens wrote many retellings of Irish myths and fairy tales. His retellings are marked by a rare combination of humor and lyricism...

 - Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

 - William Stevenson

William Stevenson (poet)

William Stevenson was an English clergyman and presumed playwright of the early English language comedy Gammer Gurton's Needle....

 - William Strode

William Strode

William Strode was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons of England variously between 1624 and 1645. He was one of the five members impeached by King Charles and fought on the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil War.-Life:...

 - Sir John Suckling

John Suckling (poet)

Sir John Suckling was an English poet and one prominent figure among those renowned for careless gaiety, wit, and all the accomplishments of a Cavalier poet; and also the inventor of the card game Cribbage...

 - Earl of Surrey

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Henry Howard, KG, , known as The Earl of Surrey although he never was a peer, was an English aristocrat, and one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry.-Life:...

 - Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

 - Joshua Sylvester

Joshua Sylvester

Joshua Sylvester was an English poet.-Biography:Sylvester was the son of a Kentish clothier. In his tenth year he was sent to school at King Edward VI School, Southampton, where he gained a knowledge of French...

 - Sir Henry Taylor

Henry Taylor (dramatist)

Sir Henry Taylor was an English dramatist.Taylor was born in Bishop Middleham, the son of a gentleman farmer, and spent his youth in Witton-le-Wear with his stepmother at Witton Hall in the high street...

 - Frederick Tennyson

Frederick Tennyson

Frederick Tennyson was an English poet.-Life:Frederick Tennyson was the eldest son of George Clayton Tennyson, Rector of Somersby, Lincolnshire, and brother of Alfred Tennyson. He was educated at Eton College and St John's College, Cambridge...

 - Lord Tennyson - William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...

 - William Thom - Edward Thomas

Edward Thomas (poet)

Philip Edward Thomas was an Anglo-Welsh writer of prose and poetry. He is commonly considered a war poet, although few of his poems deal directly with his war experiences. Already an accomplished writer, Thomas turned to poetry only in 1914...

 - Francis Thompson

Francis Thompson

Francis Thompson was an English poet and ascetic. After attending college, he moved to London to become a writer, but in menial work, became addicted to opium, and was a street vagrant for years. A married couple read his poetry and rescued him, publishing his first book, Poems in 1893...

 - James Thomson (The Seasons) - James Thomson ('B.V.')

James Thomson (B.V.)

James Thomson , who wrote under the pseudonym Bysshe Vanolis, was a Scottish Victorian-era poet famous primarily for the long poem The City of Dreadful Night , an expression of bleak pessimism in a dehumanized, uncaring urban environment.-Life:Thomson was born in Port Glasgow, Scotland, and, after...

 - Wilfrid Thorley

Wilfrid Thorley

Wilfrid Thorley was an English poet and translator.He was educated privately, then at the Liverpool Institute and Grenoble University...

 - Edward Thurlow, Lord Thurlow - Thomas Traherne

Thomas Traherne

Thomas Traherne, MA was an English poet and religious writer. His style is often considered Metaphysical.-Life:...

 - Herbert Trench

Herbert Trench

Frederic Herbert Trench was an Irish poet.He was born in Avonmore, County Cork, and educated at Haileybury and Keble College, Oxford. From 1891 he worked as an examiner for the Board of Education....

 - Charles Tennyson Turner

Charles Tennyson Turner

Charles Tennyson Turner was an English poet.Born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, he was an elder brother of Alfred Tennyson; his friendship and "heart union" with his greater brother is revealed in Poems by Two Brothers. He married Louisa Sellwood, the younger sister of Alfred's future wife; another...

 - Henry Vaughan

Henry Vaughan

Henry Vaughan was a Welsh physician and metaphysical poet.Vaughan and his twin brother the hermetic philosopher and alchemist Thomas Vaughan, were the sons of Thomas Vaughan and his wife Denise of 'Trenewydd', Newton, in Brecknockshire, Wales...

 - William Sidney Walker

William Sidney Walker

-Life:Born at Pembroke in Wales, on 4 December 1795, he was the eldest child of John Walker, a naval officer, who died at Twickenham in 1811 from the effects of wounds received in action. The boy was named after his godfather, Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, under whom his father had served. His mother's...

 - Edmund Waller

Edmund Waller

Edmund Waller, FRS was an English poet and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1624 and 1679.- Early life :...

 - William Walsh - Sir William Watson - Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts was an English hymnwriter, theologian and logician. A prolific and popular hymnwriter, he was recognised as the "Father of English Hymnody", credited with some 750 hymns...

 - Charles Webbe - John Webster

John Webster

John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates...

 - Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley was an English leader of the Methodist movement, son of Anglican clergyman and poet Samuel Wesley, the younger brother of Anglican clergyman John Wesley and Anglican clergyman Samuel Wesley , and father of musician Samuel Wesley, and grandfather of musician Samuel Sebastian Wesley...

 - Robert Wever

Robert Wever

Robert Wever was an English poet and dramatist of the sixteenth century about whom little biographical information seems to have survived. His name is often given as Richard Wever or simply R. Wever. An Enterlude called lusty Juventus, an interlude, attributed to him, was published in 1565...

 - Joseph Blanco White

Joseph Blanco White

Joseph Blanco White, born José María Blanco Crespo , was a Spanish theologian and poet....

 - Charles Whitehead

Charles Whitehead

Charles Whitehead was an English poet, novelist, and dramatist.Whitehead was born in London, the eldest son of a wine merchant...

 - Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...

 - John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He is usually listed as one of the Fireside Poets...

 - John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester - Charles Williams - George Wither

George Wither

George Wither was an English poet, pamphleteer, and satirist. He was a prolific writer who adopted a deliberate plainness of style; he was several times imprisoned. C. V...

 - Charles Wolfe

Charles Wolfe (poet)

Charles Wolfe was an Irish poet, chiefly remembered for his "exquisite elegy", The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna-Family:...

 - Margaret Louisa Woods

Margaret Louisa Woods

Margaret Louisa Woods was an English writer, known for novels and poetry. She was the daughter of the scholar George Granville Bradley and sister to fellow writer Mabel Birchenough...

 - William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....

 - Sir Henry Wotton - Sir Thomas Wyatt

Thomas Wyatt (poet)

Sir Thomas Wyatt was a 16th-century English lyrical poet credited with introducing the sonnet into English. He was born at Allington Castle, near Maidstone in Kent – though his family was originally from Yorkshire...

 - William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...

External links

• Preface at Wikisource
• Project Gutenberg Book of English Verse
• Oxford Book of English Verse at Bartleby.com
• Adobe edition at djm.cc