About Us

This blog is dedicated to sharing knowledge surrounding the Victorian Poet, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892). Tennyson was an English Poet from Lincolnshire who became Poet Laureate after William Wordsworth in 1850. His most famous poem, the elegy In Memoriam A.H.H was a favourite of Prince Albert, and later a source of great consolation to Queen Victoria after her husband’s death. In 1884, Queen Victorian made him the 1st Baron Tennyson of Aldworth, Surrey and of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. Many of the Poet’s lines have become etched into the English language, and he is one of the most prolific authors quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Adored nationally (and internationally), Tennyson was one of the major literary celebrities of the Victorian age and was buried in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey after a state funeral.

The life of the Poet was a fascinating one. Historians, researchers and academics over the last two centuries have worked extensively to archive both his poetry and his life. This blog seeks to produce a dedicated space in which to share this rich history in a way accessible to a wider audience. The posts will attempt to share summaries about the life and works of Tennyson, but also of his family and friends, to be enjoyed at leisure by the interested reader. Tennyson was a multi-faceted man with a complex familial and temporal history alongside his undeniable talent as beloved Victorian poet. As the project grows, the blog will share information about different facets of Tennysonian history from his childhood, to his siblings, to the places he called home, in order to create a tapestry in which readers can immerse themselves in the life of the Poet.

As a postgraduate researcher examining how Tennyson has haunted British cultural and literary history since the nineteenth century, I seek to archive some of my research and findings for the general public to engage with. Some details have been lost to time, but I seek to portray the life of Alfred, Lord Tennyson as accurately as possible, relying on primary source material from archives and based on academic research from the two hundred years. I hope this blog will give an easy to navigate space which contains an interesting and extensive history which readers can learn from.

This blog owes a great debt to many researchers who have dedicated their lives to collecting material. Primarily, this blog’s biographical information relies on Hallam Tennyson’s Memoir of Alfred Lord Tennyson and Tennyson and his Friends, and the three volume collection of Tennyson’s Letters edited by Cecil Y. Lang and Edgar F. Shannon Jr.