Literary History Today Jan. 25: Robert Burns Day
Poet Robert Burns, not Robbie as I was told often during my visit to Scotland last year, was born on this day in 1759 at the village of Alloway in South Ayreshire.
Today in Literary History Jan. 12: Oscar Wilde writes about Henry James
On this day in 1899, Oscar Wilde, in a letter to Canadian journalist Robert Ross, believed to have been his first male lover, writes: “Henry James is developing, but he will never arrive at passion, I fear.”
Spooky Places: The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Virginia
After one semester at the University of Virginia where he racked up gambling debts, Poe and the family that took him in parted ways and he was left on his own.
Travels with Christina Rossetti to Ticino, Switzerland
TICINO, SWITZERLAND — Poet Christina Rossetti, born on this day in 1830, was a Victorian poet and along with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, one of the great women poets in nineteenth century England. The sister of Dante Gabriel, Rossetti was torn between obligations and expectations of the Victorian age. She turned away two suitors. One named Charles Cayley, a scholar, may have proposed to her in 1864 when she was 34 years old. […]