Jane Austen (1775–1817)

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in England, as the youngest daughter of a Hampshire clergyman. Her six novels are set within the world she inhabited, that of the comfortable, rural middle class, and are often inspired by her observations of those around her and her insights into human nature. These novels portray young women entering society, many of whom make mistakes or become confused but ultimately find their way to a happy marriage.

Austen began writing in her teenage years, initially sharing her work only with family and friends. When she eventually published her works, she did so anonymously. Although not widely known during her lifetime, she quickly gained a reputation for her precision, irony, and delicate touch as a writer. Her most famous works include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Emma (1816). Austen influenced many later authors, including Charles Dickens, W. M. Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and Elizabeth Gaskell. Her books have endured as some of the few “classics” still widely read for pleasure today. Austen passed away from illness on July 18, 1817, in Winchester, England.

William Blake (1757–1827)

Artist and visionary poet William Blake was born on November 28, 1757, in London, England, to a hosier. At the age of fifteen, he was apprenticed to engraver James Basire, for whom he made drawings at Westminster Abbey. In 1783, Blake's Poetical Sketches were printed, and in 1789, he engraved Thel and The Songs of Innocence. The increasing turmoil caused by the French Revolution and the war between Britain and France influenced Blake to engrave America (1793) and The Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793). The following year, he produced the combined Songs of Innocence and Experience, Europe, and The First Book of Urizen.

In 1803, Blake was accused of sedition (inciting resistance or insurrection against lawful authority). He was tried in 1804 but acquitted. During this period, he completed Milton and began Jerusalem. However, for the next two decades, his life became increasingly despairing, poverty-stricken, and obscure. He was regarded as insane by some, and he eked out a living by illustrating a pottery catalog and selling his print collection. However, later in life, he found supporters and patrons, and in 1820, Jerusalem was finally engraved. Blake died on August 12, 1827, in London. Although he was primarily known as an artist and engraver during his lifetime, he became recognized as an important writer posthumously, influencing poets such as William Butler Yeats.

Lord Byron (1788–1824)

George Gordon Byron was born on January 22, 1788, in London, England, inheriting the title of the sixth Lord Byron when he was ten years old. He grew up on the family estate near Nottingham, Newstead Abbey, and was educated at Harrow and Cambridge. His first publication, the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, was based on a tour of Portugal, Spain, Greece, and Turkey that he undertook between 1809 and 1811. The work was immediately successful, and he followed it with a series of tales featuring exotic Middle Eastern settings and hero-villains.

Byron's marriage to Anne Isabella Milbanke in 1815 lasted only fifteen months, primarily due to rumors he himself spread about his homosexuality and incestuous relationship with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. In 1816, he left England for good, embarking on travels that inspired cantos three and four of Childe Harold (1816, 1818). He eventually settled in Venice, Italy, where his deep engagement with the Italian language and culture profoundly influenced his work, particularly Don Juan (1819–1824). During his time in Italy, he was romantically involved with Countess Teresa Guiccioli and became active in Italian independence movements. In 1823, he went to Greece to support the Greek struggle for independence from the Turks. He died during a violent electrical storm on April 19, 1824, in Missolonghi, Greece, after nearly two weeks of a fever-induced illness. His body was returned to England, but due to his scandalous past, he was denied burial in Westminster Abbey and was instead buried in his family’s vaults near Newstead Abbey. During his lifetime, Byron's work was distinguished by its emphasis on freedom, overt sexual themes, pessimism, and the use of tormented, villainous heroes.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on October 21, 1772, in Ottery St. Mary, Devon, England, as the youngest child of a clergyman and his wife. At the age of ten, he enrolled at Christ’s Hospital School in London, where he read an extensive range of classical and political works. In 1791, he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, and developed an interest in revolutionary politics and Unitarianism. He left the school without earning a degree. In 1794, he met poet Robert Southey, and together they planned a utopian community on the banks of the Susquehanna River in the United States. As part of this plan, Coleridge married Southey’s sister-in-law, Sara Fricker.

In 1794, he published his first poetry in the Morning Chronicle. In 1795, he started delivering a series of lectures to fund the utopian project, but when the idea was abandoned, he returned to writing poetry. From 1797 to 1798, he lived in Nether Stowey, Somerset, and completed some of his best-known poems, including “The Ancient Mariner,” “Frost at Midnight,” “Fears in Solitude,” and “Kubla Khan.” In 1798, he traveled to Germany with William and Dorothy Wordsworth, where he developed a deep interest in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Coleridge’s addiction to opium gradually took a toll on him and his marriage. In 1804, he traveled to Malta in an attempt to restore his mental and physical health, as well as his marriage. He returned to England in 1806, but by that time, his marriage had disintegrated.

By 1813, he had returned to Christian beliefs and was receiving treatment for his opium addiction. He began working on Biographia Literaria (1817), a discussion of poetry and a critique of Wordsworth, drawing on the work of German philosophers such as Kant and Fichte. He died on July 25, 1834, in Highgate, England.

John Keats (1795–1821)

John Keats, the youngest among the major romantic poets, was born on October 31, 1795, in London, England, to a lower-middle-class family. The accidental death of his father in 1804 and his mother's death from tuberculosis in 1809 left him with a profound awareness of life's fragility—a recurring theme in his poetry. Keats was apprenticed to a surgeon and earned his license as an apothecary and surgeon in 1816. His scientific training lent his poetry a strong foundation in the sensory experiences of nature and daily life.

Keats's first published poem, “O Solitude,” appeared in The Examiner in 1816 and caught the attention of Leigh Hunt, the magazine's editor. Hunt encouraged Keats to abandon his medical career and dedicate himself entirely to poetry. Keats considered this pursuit the noblest of goals, driven by a deep appreciation for the continuity of poetry and literature through history, a profound love for the English language, and a wish to reconnect poetry with its roots in Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Spenser. His first published collection, simply titled Poems 1817 (1817), was dedicated to Leigh Hunt. Although his second work, Endymion (1818), did not meet his own standards, his third collection, Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and Other Poems (1820), included "some of the greatest poems in the English language," according to Jean-Claude Sallé in the Handbook to English Romanticism (edited by Jean Raimond and J. R. Watson). Keats succumbed to tuberculosis on February 23, 1821, in Rome, Italy, at the age of twenty-five.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is most famous as the author of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). Born on August 30, 1797, in London, England, she was the daughter of renowned authors William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary's early life was marked by instability; her mother died ten days after her birth, and she was brought up by her father and stepmother. In 1812, she met the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a friend of her father's, and in 1814, they eloped, despite Percy being married. During their travels across Europe, Mary began writing Frankenstein. Percy’s wife Harriet committed suicide in 1816, and shortly thereafter, Percy and Mary married. Percy drowned four years after the publication of Frankenstein, and Mary died of a brain tumor on February 1, 1851, in London.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

Percy Bysshe Shelley, the eldest child and only son of a baronet, was born on August 4, 1792, in Horsham, Sussex, England. He attended Eton, where he endured relentless bullying due to his extreme sensitivity and aversion to physical activity. He then enrolled at University College, Oxford, but was expelled after a few months for publishing a pamphlet advocating atheism. Shortly after his expulsion, he eloped with Harriet Westbrook, aiming to help her escape from her boarding school.

By 1914, his marriage was deteriorating, and after meeting Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin through her father, Shelley decided to travel to Europe with her. Harriet took her own life in 1916, and soon afterward, Shelley married Godwin. In 1818, the couple, along with Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont, chose to relocate to Italy, where Shelley would remain for the rest of his life. He and Mary roamed across Italy, and between 1818 and 1822, Shelley produced some of his most significant works, including Prometheus Unbound (1820) and his odes and lyrics. His writings are distinguished by their reflections on various fields, such as science, history, and philosophy, and his efforts to reconcile seemingly conflicting ideas within these disciplines. Shelley drowned in a storm while sailing on the Bay of La Spezia on July 8, 1822. His body was cremated on the beach a few days later.

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England. His father was a legal agent, and after his mother passed away in 1778, he was sent to school, where he experienced a great deal of freedom. His father died in 1783, leaving Wordsworth and his four siblings to be cared for by relatives. Throughout his life, Wordsworth maintained a close relationship with his sister Dorothy.

Wordsworth began writing poetry as a young man, but his most renowned works were written after 1803, many of which were compiled in Poems in Two Volumes (1807). These volumes include the well-known “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” and “Resolution and Independence.” His lengthy poem The Excursion was published in 1814 and gained widespread readership. In 1835, a significant collection of his poems was released, and in 1843 he was appointed as the poet laureate of England.

Wordsworth’s poetry is celebrated for its depiction of the sublime, or the divine, in everyday people and places. He firmly believed in the restorative power of nature and perceived mystery and wonder in both humanity and the natural world. Wordsworth passed away from pleurisy on April 23, 1850, in Rydal, Cumbria, England.