England

Selima Hill (she/her) grew up in a family of painters on farms in England and Wales. She has lived in Dorset for the past 40 years. She received a Cholmondeley Award in 1986 and was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow...

Richard Rolle, also known as Richard Rolle of Hampole or de Hampole, was born in Yorkshire in 1300 to a poor farming family. He was an English hermit, a writer, and a mystic and was a part of the golden age...

The “Gawain Poet” is the name used for the unknown author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The entirety of the Gawain Poet's known work exists in a single manuscript written in Middle English that dates...

Kim Moore was born in Leicester, England. Her first chapbook, If We Could Speak Like Wolves, was a winner in the 2011 Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition, and went on to be shortlisted for the Michael...

American poet Dustan Thompson was born in Connecticut and educated at Harvard University. After briefly coediting the magazine Vice Versa with classmate and fellow dropout Harry Brown in New York City, Thompson...

English poet David Gascoyne grew up in England and Scotland, and he lived in Paris in the early 1930s. His poetry underwent several major changes during his long career. At first an Imagist, then a dedicated...

Playwright, poet, and translator George Chapman was an important figure in the English Renaissance. His plays, particularly, were adapted for the stage throughout the Restoration, and, though his reputation...

Extraordinarily prolific and decidedly popular among the reading public, Alfred Noyes enjoyed a full-fledged career as a writer and as an intellectual when few people of the era could depend solely on the ...

Poet, playwright, and translator Sasha Dugdale was born in Sussex, England. She has worked as a consultant for theater companies in addition to writing her own plays. From 1995 to 2000, she worked for the ...

English poet and feminist essayist Lady Mary Chudleigh (1656–1710) was a devout Anglican who educated herself and, ahead of her time, challenged traditional gender roles. She was born in Winslade, Devon, and...

Like the other Cavalier poets of 17th-century England, Richard Lovelace lived a legendary life as a soldier, lover, and courtier. Persecuted for his unflagging support of King Charles I, he died in dire poverty...

Elected to Parliament at age 16, Edmund Waller quickly gained a reputation as a masterful orator. He was also a celebrated lyric poet long before the publication of his Poems in 1645. Despite his eloquent ...

Associated with the 17th-century metaphysical poets, English poet and Anglican cleric Richard Crashaw was born in London. He studied at the University of Cambridge and taught at Peterhouse and the University...

The achievement of Christopher Marlowe, poet and dramatist, was enormous—surpassed only by that of his exact contemporary, William Shakespeare. A few months the elder, Marlowe was usually the leader, although...

Of all English poets, Thomas Chatterton seemed to his great Romantic successors most to typify a commitment to the life of imagination. His poverty and untimely suicide represented the martyrdom of the poet...

No one can deny the power, endurance, and memorable lines of the work of John Skelton; he is indisputably the first major Tudor poet, writing during the reigns of Edward IV, Richard III, and (for most of his...

The reputation of Vera Mary Brittain, named a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1946, centers on her achievements as an influential British feminist and pacifist and on her famous memoir of World...

In late-17th-century estimates of literary stature, Michael Drayton was not quite as highly regarded as Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and Ben Jonson. Until the middle of the 20th century, Drayton’s position...