Curated playlist

English male poets

Charles DickensAt twelve, Charles Dickens pasted labels on boot blacking pots in a rat-infested warehouse.
James MabbeDid James Mabbe write a verse in Shakespeare's First Folio? A poem there is signed only "I. M."
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare called himself in "perfect health" in his will, then died within a month.
John Davies of HerefordIn 2007, scholar Brian Vickers argued that a poem printed with Shakespeare's Sonnets was by John Davies of Hereford.
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.
Lord ByronWestminster Abbey refused Lord Byron's body for questionable morality. It finally gave him a memorial in 1969.
Thomas HardyThomas Hardy's heart and ashes were buried in two different places. The Abbey got his ashes, Stinsford his heart.
William WordsworthWordsworth's greatest poem, The Prelude, appeared only months after he died. His widow, Mary, published it in 1850.
Jonathan SwiftJonathan Swift once announced that a living almanac maker had died. Swift wrote as Isaac Bickerstaff in 1708.
Alexander PopeAfter The Dunciad angered his targets, poet Alexander Pope carried pistols on walks.
Alfred, Lord TennysonGrief for a friend who died at twenty-two shaped Tennyson's masterpiece.
Ben JonsonBen Jonson killed a man in a duel and escaped hanging by reciting a Bible verse.
John MiltonJohn Milton sold Paradise Lost for five pounds. The blind poet handed it to a publisher in April 1667.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase "suspension of disbelief." He also battled opium addiction for years.
William BlakeNear death, William Blake spent one of his last shillings on a pencil. He drew his wife's portrait before he died.
William MorrisWilliam Morris despised industrial capitalism yet decorated the homes of the rich.
A. A. MilneA. A. Milne accused his old cricket teammate P. G. Wodehouse of near treason.
W. H. AudenW. H. Auden died hours after reading his poems aloud in a Vienna hotel.
Leonard Digges (writer)Leonard Digges translated a Spanish text in 1622, and John Fletcher used it for two plays.
William Forrest (poet)Priest William Forrest wrote a long poem defending Catherine of Aragon. He gave it to Queen Mary in 1558.
Christopher MarloweQueen Elizabeth's Privy Council once wrote to Cambridge to make sure Christopher Marlowe got his degree.
Aldous HuxleyAldous Huxley died the same day as John F. Kennedy, and almost nobody noticed. C. S. Lewis died that afternoon too.
Michael DraytonMichael Drayton's first book, published in 1590, was almost entirely destroyed by public order.
University WitsThe name "University Wits" was never used by the writers it describes. Journalist George Saintsbury coined it.
Thomas MoreThomas More taught his daughters Greek when almost no one did. He also approved burning heretics.
Edmund SpenserWhen poet Edmund Spenser was buried in 1599, fellow poets threw pens and their own poems into his grave.
John Fletcher (playwright)John Fletcher was once as famous on the English stage as Shakespeare. He wrote or co-wrote close to fifty plays.
Walter RaleighWalter Raleigh sent settlers to Roanoke Island but never set foot in North America.
Joseph of ExeterPoet Joseph of Exeter joined his uncle, the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the Third Crusade.
John DrydenHired thugs beat poet John Dryden in a London alley in December 1679.
John GowerJohn Gower wrote nearly thirty thousand lines of verse in three languages, and almost nobody knows his name.
Philip SidneyPhilip Sidney died at 31 from a thigh wound, leaving a romance that stops mid sword fight.
Thomas Wyatt (poet)Poet Thomas Wyatt's sonnets were not printed under his name until 1557. That was fifteen years after he died.
Edmund CartwrightA mill meant for 500 power looms burned down with only 30 installed. Weavers working by hand were the likely arsonists.
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of OxfordEdward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was buried in an unmarked grave in 1604. Some still say he wrote Shakespeare's plays.
Henry WottonHenry Wotton's joke that an ambassador lies abroad nearly wrecked his career.
Kevin Crossley-HollandKevin Crossley-Holland failed his first Oxford exams, then found his lifelong passion. It was Anglo-Saxon literature.
Richard AldingtonRichard Aldington replaced banned words in his war novel with asterisks so readers could see the censoring.
Robert SoutheyRobert Southey wrote the original story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. He was also Poet Laureate for thirty years.
Nicholas Rowe (writer)Nicholas Rowe made the first eighteenth-century edition of Shakespeare.