Curated playlist
English republicans
- Percy Bysshe ShelleyPoet Percy Bysshe Shelley's body was identified partly by a copy of Keats's Lamia in his jacket.
- H. G. WellsH. G. Wells described atomic bombs in a 1914 novel. Physicist León Szilárd later said reading it stayed with him.
- John MiltonJohn Milton sold Paradise Lost for five pounds. The blind poet handed it to a publisher in April 1667.
- 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.
- Mary WollstonecraftMary Wollstonecraft died eleven days after giving birth to the daughter who would write Frankenstein.
- John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill was reading Greek at age three. His father was deliberately raising a genius.
- Robert Smith (musician)On the 14th of October 2024, Robert Smith of the Cure said he plans to retire in 2029. His reasoning was tidy. He turns 70 that year, and 2029 marks 50 years since the band's first album, Three Imaginary Boys. Smith added a caveat: he has…
- Daniel RadcliffeDaniel Radcliffe, an English actor born on the 23rd of July 1989, played Harry Potter in all eight films of the series between 2001 and 2011. When he was around 14 or 15, he and his co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were offered the…
- MorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey, known to the world as Morrissey, once led a tour of Manchester for the Oxford Road Show in 1985. Late in that tour he reached the secondary school he had attended. He described it in harsh terms and closed with a…
- Philippa GregoryNovelist Philippa Gregory's charity has dug close to 200 wells in The Gambia.
- Quentin SkinnerQuentin Skinner turned down a knighthood offered with a Cambridge professorship. His republicanism would not allow it.