Curated playlist
19th-century English male writers
- John KeatsJohn Keats asked for a tombstone with no name on it. He died in Rome at 25, sure he had failed as a poet.
- Percy Bysshe ShelleyPoet Percy Bysshe Shelley's body was identified partly by a copy of Keats's Lamia in his jacket.
- William WordsworthWordsworth's greatest poem, The Prelude, appeared only months after he died. His widow, Mary, published it in 1850.
- Alfred, Lord TennysonGrief for a friend who died at twenty-two shaped Tennyson's masterpiece.
- Benjamin DisraeliBenjamin Disraeli bought a controlling stake in the Suez Canal within days in 1875.
- John SnowIn 1854, John Snow had a London council remove a water pump's handle during a cholera outbreak.
- John Russell, 1st Earl RussellLord John Russell was barely five feet five, and cartoonists mocked him for it. He still reshaped British democracy.
- Thomas Robert MalthusThomas Malthus argued that population always grows faster than the food supply.
- Robert BridgesRobert Bridges was the only medical graduate to hold the office of Poet Laureate. He was appointed in 1913.
- John LingardA Catholic priest wrote a history of England that Protestants read. John Lingard hid his priesthood on the title page.
- Robert SoutheyRobert Southey wrote the original story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. He was also Poet Laureate for thirty years.