By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘George’ was the pseudonym of choice for nineteenth-century women writers: George Eliot (Marian Evans), George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne). But these women were following an unconventional French writer in choosing to Georgify themselves for publication. In this post, we offer a very short biography of George Sand (1804-76), focusing on the most fascinating aspects of her life.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
In his Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Henry Vaughan is associated with the seventeenth-century Metaphysical Poets, but his name is not as famous or familiar as, say, Andrew Marvell or John Donne. In this post we offer a very short biography of Henry Vaughan, providing a brief introduction to his life and work – focusing on the most interesting aspects of Vaughan’s life.
Henry Vaughan was, like his great mentor George Herbert, Welsh in origin. Born in Newton-upon-Usk in 1621, Vaughan was one of twins (his brother Thomas became an alchemist and would later die from the effects of mercury poisoning in 1666).
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
It’s not often that a poet only achieves real renown after his death: Gerard Manley Hopkins is one such example, with much of his poetry only seeing publication nearly thirty years after his death. But in terms of having the longest wait for your posthumous reputation to begin, the seventeenth-century poet Thomas Traherne (c. 1637-74) may take first prize. In this post we offer a very short biography of Traherne, paying particular attention to the interesting aspects of his life – what little we know of Traherne’s life for certain – and the curious fate of his poetry.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
For Jane Ridley, one of Benjamin Disraeli’s most acclaimed biographers, Disraeli is never boring. With that in mind, in this post we offer a short biography of Benjamin Disraeli that aims to condense some of the most interesting aspects of his colourful life into one very brief article. What made the life of Benjamin Disraeli – politician, Prime Minister, successful novelist – so fascinating?
Benjamin Disraeli was born in 1804 into the Jewish faith, although his father had his son baptised in the Church of England at age 13. That father, Isaac D’Israeli, was the author of the sort of book we here at Interesting Literature love – a collection of anecdotes and intriguing facts called Curiosities of Literature. Like father, like son: they both appear to have gone in terror of the boring.