Poets

Clara G. Dolliver, a San Franciscan, published poems and short stories in journals such as St. Nicholas Magazine and Oliver Optic's Magazine. She was especially well-known for the poem "No Baby in the House" (see Nancy J. Peters and Lawrence Ferlingetti, Literary San Francisco [San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980]: 46-48). The San Francisco Call newspaper records her marriage to Samuel W. Burtchaell in 1891.

Cædmon's story has one source -- Book IV, Chapter 24, of the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (finished in 731) by the Venerable Bede (673-735), a monk of Jarrow in Northumbria. The following excerpt is rendered into modern English from A History of the English Church and People, translated by Leo Shirley-Price (Penguin Books, 1955): 245-47:

In this monastery of Whitby there lived a brother whom God's… Read more

Charles Stuart Calverley, born on December 22, 1831, at Martley, Worcestershire, was educated at Marlborough College, Harrow, Oxford, and Cambridge, and was elected a fellow of Christ's College and appointed a lecturer in Classics in 1857. His Verses and Translations (1862), and later translations of Theocritus and Virgil, stem from his academic research. In 1863 he married his cousin Ellen and began to study law at… Read more

Born in Kitchener (then Berlin), Ontario, Campbell grew up in Wiarton, attended high school in Owen Sound, and studied at University College in 1881-82 (where he wrote for the student newspaper The Varsity) and Wycliffe College in 1882-83, Toronto, and then at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He married Mary Dibble of Woodstock, Ontario, in 1884, and worked as rector of the congregations… Read more

Except for the elegy on Donne, which first appeared in Donne's Poems, 1633, the poems by Carew in this selection were first published shortly after his death, in Poems, 1640. A considerable number of them were set to music, and numerous manuscript versions of this song exist with considerable differences of text.

An illegitimate child, possibly of George Savile, marquess of Halifax (1633-95), Henry Carey earned a living as a writer of burlesques, poems, and occasionally music. A protégé of Addison, who liked his "Sally in our Alley," Carey succeeded best when he was most amusing. His "Namy-Pamby," which sends up the childish manners of the poet Ambrose Phillips, is also a valued early historical record of nursery rhymes.… Read more

Thomas Carlyle was born on December 4, 1795. After attending Annan Academy and Edinburgh University, he taught mathematics for a time before finding his vocation as one of the foremost essayists, biographers, and historians of his century. At first he devoted himself to introducing German literature into English in translation, but his reputation stands on his original prose: Sartor Resartus (1834), History of the… Read more

Born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in the Canadian Maritimes, and educated at the University of New Brunswick, Carman authored more than 50 volumes of poetry in his lifetime and became recognized, after his coast-to-coast tour in 1921 reading his poetry, as Canada's unofficial poet laureate. His career as a man of letters was never in doubt for this first cousin of the poet Charles G. D. Roberts. Carman studied at… Read more

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, also known as Lewis Carroll (his pseudonym), was born in 1832 and educated at Rugby College and Christ Church, Oxford. Although a lecturer in mathematics there from 1855, Dodgson achieved international fame as the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1866) and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found there (1871). A boat ride with the three daughters of H. G. Liddell, dean of… Read more

William Herbert Carruth, born on April 5, 1859, near Osawatomie, Kansas, received his B.A. in modern languages at the University of Kansas (1880), studied at the Universities of Berlin and Munich, and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University (1889, 1893). He served as Professor of Modern Languages and then German at the University of Kansas throughout his life. His many academic publications in German… Read more

Born on September 4, 1824, at Mount Healthy, close to Cincinnati, Ohio, Phoebe Cary and her older sister Alice co-published poems in 1849 and then Phoebe went on to bring out three volumes of her own:

A few months after her sister's death, Phoebe died on July 31, 1871, in Newport,… Read more

André-Marie Chenier (1762-1794) was a victim of the French Revolution. Born in Constantinople of a Greek mother and a French father in the diplomatic service, he early felt the influence of classical antiquity though he was educated in France. Chénier was widely travelled and active in politics. Arrested in France on a false suspicion of animosity to the new regime, he was imprisoned at St. Lazare and later… Read more

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born on 29 May, 1874 at 32 Sheffield Terrace, Campden Hill, London. He was the elder son of Edward Chesterton (an estate agent) and Marie Louise (née Grosjean). As Chesterton would later emphasize in his Autobiography (1936), he had a comfortable upbringing in a middle-class family and a generally happy childhood. Chesterton was somewhat absent-minded in his early years, and was noted to… Read more

Recollections by V. M. Padmini Chettur (October 2006)

G. K. Chettur, my father, was the oldest of the four sons of Mr. and Mrs. P. K. Krishna Menon. His brothers were K. K. Chettur, I. F. S., Ambassador of India to Japan and Belgium, Col. R. K. Chettur, an Army doctor and surgeon, and S. K. Chettur, I. C. S., India’s representative to Malaysia in 1945 who retired as chief secretary of Tamil Nadu (Madras).

Born February 11, 1802, in Medford, Massachusetts, Lydia Maria Child made her living as a novelist, story-story writer, schoolteacher, editor, writer for children, and controversialist. Her first notorious work, a novel entitled Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times (1824), celebrated interracial marriage. Later she published books for and on women, including The Frugal Housewife (1829) The Mother's Book (1831), The Girl's… Read more

Margaret Christakos teaches creative writing at the School of Continuing Studies, University of Toronto. She also works as a poetry advisor/mentor with WIER (Writers in Electronic Residence), with the MFA program at the University of Guelph-Humber, and with Diaspora Dialogues. From 1992 to 1997 she taught Creative Writing at the Ontario College of Art;… Read more

George Elliott Clarke is the E.J. Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto. His works include the poem-novel, Whylah Falls (1990), the narrative lyric sequence, Execution Poems (2001), and the verse-play and opera, Beatrice Chancy (1999). Clarke's awards include the Governor-General's Award for Poetry (2001), a Bellagio (Italy) Center Fellowship (1998), and the National Magazine Gold Award… Read more

Paul Claudel (1868-1955) was a professional diplomat who represented France as ambassador in many countries including China and the United States. In his poetry, he reveals himself as a fervent Catholic and mystic. Claudel often writes in short versets which make his thought difficult to follow. Claudel has written prose works and many plays, of which the best known is L'Annonce faite à Marie.

Wayne Clifford is a Canadian poet, editor, and educator. He has written more than a dozen books of poetry, including the goundbreaking sonnet sequence The Exile's Papers, which currently extends over three volumes. After attaining his M.A. and M.F.A. at the University of Iowa in 1969, he spent three and half decades working at a small college in Kingston, Ontario. Leaving to write full-time in 2004, Clifford was… Read more

Born September 19, 1796, at Kingsdown, Bristol, Hartley Coleridge was the oldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was the subject of one of his father's finest poems, "Frost at Midnight," and of Wordsworth's astute "To H. C. -- Six Years Old." After his parents separated, Hartley was brought up by Robert Southey at Keswick. At Oxford Hartley first felt keen disappointment at his failure to win the Newdigate Prize… Read more