Aaronson, Lazarus (1895–1966), poet and educationist, was born at 34 Great Pearl Street, Spitalfields, London, on 18 February 1895, the son of Louis Aaronson, master bootmaker, and his wife, Sarah, née Kowalski. His parents were impoverished Jewish immigrants from Vilna in the Pale...
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Richard D. Jordan
Abbot, John (1587/8–c. 1650), Roman Catholic priest and poet, is of unknown parentage and is variously recorded as 'of London' and 'of Leicester'. He was born a protestant, and was reputedly a nephew of George Abbot, who became archbishop of ...
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Thompson Cooper
revised by Michael Bevan
Abbott, Lemuel (d. 1776), Church of England clergyman and poet, whose family background is obscure, became curate of Ansty, Leicestershire, in 1756, and vicar of Thornton, in the same county, in 1773. He published Poems on Various Subjects, whereto is Prefixed a Short Essay on the Structure of English Verse...
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Abbott, Thomas Eastoe (1786–1854), poet, was born on 23 November 1786 at East Dereham, Norfolk, where he was baptized on 29 November 1786, the son of John Abbott (1749/50–1803) and his wife Susanna Eastoe (1752/3–1823). He was descended from a ...
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Virginia H. Blain
Abdy [née Smith], Maria (1797–1867), poet, was born on 30 January 1797 in London, where she was baptized at St Mary le Bow on 25 February 1797, was the daughter of Richard Smith, a solicitor, and his wife, Maria, née Smith (1773–1828/9)...
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Abercrombie, Lascelles (1881–1938), poet and literary critic, was born at Manor House, Ashton upon Mersey, Cheshire, on 9 January 1881, the sixth son, and the tenth of eleven children (two of whom died in childhood), of William Abercrombie (1838–1908), stockbroker, of Ashton upon Mersey...
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Abse, Daniel [Dannie] (1923–2014), physician, poet, and author, was born on 22 September 1923 at 161 Whitchurch Road, Gabalfa, Cardiff, the youngest of four children of Rudolf Abse (1887–1964), cinema proprietor, and his wife, Kate, née Shepherd (1890–1981...
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Ackland, Mary Kathleen Macrory- [pseud. Valentine Ackland] (1906–1969), poet, was born on 20 May 1906 at 54 Brook Street, Mayfair, London, the younger daughter of Robert Craig Ackland (1865–1923), a West End dental surgeon, and his wife, Ruth Kathleen, née Macrory (1876/7–1961)...
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Elizabeth Ray
Acton, Eliza (1799–1859), writer on cookery and poet, was born at Battle, Sussex, on 17 April 1799, the eldest of the five children of John Acton and his wife, Elizabeth, née Mercer. The Actons were a Suffolk family, and returned there soon after ...
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Karina Williamson
Adam [Adams], Jean (1704–1765), poet, was born on 28 April 1704 in Cartsdyke, near Greenock, Renfrewshire, one of five children of John Adam, a mariner, and his wife, Jean Eddie, reportedly a woman of little common sense. Jean Adam's scanty education comprised reading, writing, and sewing, but after her father's death when she was still young she entered domestic service with the minister of ...
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W. H. Kelliher
Adams, Richard (bap. 1620, d. 1661), poet, was baptized at St Leonard Eastcheap in London on 8 January 1620, the second son of Sir Thomas Adams, first baronet (bap. 1586, d. 1668), and his wife, Ann (1592–1642), daughter of Humphrey Maptide (d...
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Virginia H. Blain
Adams, Sarah Flower (1805–1848), poet, was born on 22 February 1805 at Great Harlow, Essex, the daughter of Benjamin Flower (1755–1829), nonconformist editor of the radical Cambridge Intelligencer, and Eliza Gould (1770–1810), a Devon schoolteacher. Her father was famous for going to prison in defence of his right to freedom of expression in 1799, while her mother had been forced out of her school for refusing on principle to cancel her subscription to his ...
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Sarah Flower Adams (1805–1848) after Margaret Gillies © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Katharine A. Craik
Adamson, Henry (bap. 1581, d. 1637), poet and historian, was baptized in Perth on 11 November 1581, the son of the merchant James Adamson (d. after 1617), who served as dean of guild in 1600 and provost between 1609 and 1612, and ...
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Katherine Mullin
Aidé, (Charles) Hamilton (1826–1906), novelist and poet, born in the rue St Honoré, Paris, on 4 November 1826, was the younger son of George Aïdá (d. 1830), a diplomatist and the son of an Armenian merchant settled in Constantinople, and his wife, ...
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Ainslie, Hew (1792–1878), brewer and poet, was born on 5 April 1792 at Bargeny Mains in the parish of Dailly, Ayrshire, only son of the three children of George Ainslie, a butler on the estate of Sir Hew Dalrymple Hamilton. His mother's name is unknown, but ...
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Peter J. Smith
Airbertach mac Cosse Dobráin (d. 1016), poet, was lector or fer légind (head of the school) and later superior of Ros Ailithir (Ross Carbery, in the south-west of what is now co. Cork). He belonged to the tradition of learned poetry that flourished in ...
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Aird, Thomas (1802–1876), poet, was born on 28 August 1802 at Bowden, Roxburghshire, the second son of James Aird, builder, and his wife, Isabella Paisley. He was educated at the parish school of Bowden, where he combined an enthusiasm for literature and sports. In 1816 he began undergraduate studies at the ...
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Mark Akenside (1721–1770) by Edward Fisher, 1772 (after Arthur Pond, 1754) © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Akenside, Mark (1721–1770), poet and physician, was born on 9 November 1721 in Butcher Bank, St Nicholas, Newcastle upon Tyne, the sixth of seven children of Mark Akenside (b. 1676), butcher, and his wife, Mary (1685–1760), daughter of William Lumsden. He was baptized on 30 November in the nonconformist meeting-house which his parents attended in ...
