Arthur Symons was born in 1865, the son of a Cornish preacher in Wales. He moved around a great deal throughout his childhood, prompting him to later write that he had never had the kind of childhood that most children do, staying long enough in one place for it to “become a part of him”. [...]

Poet Robert Hayden was born Asa Bundy Sheffy on August 4, 1913. Early in life, he was taken in by William Hayden and Sue Ellen Westerfield, and grew up as their son in Detroit. He grew up in a household full of conflict, and its effects lasted throughout his life, and influenced his poetry. As [...]

Hilda Conkling was born in 1910, supposedly at Northampton, Massachusetts, USA, as that”s where her mother, Grace Hazard Conkling, was working around that time as a teacher at Smith College. Her father died when Hilda was very young, she was four years old. She had an older sister, Elsa. Hilda Conkling was a child poet, [...]

William Allingham was born March 19, 1824, at Ballyshannon, County Donegal, one of the oldest towns in Ireland. He was the eldest of five children, son of a shipping merchant. His mother died when he was aged nine. He began working in a bank in 1838 at the age of fourteen. He quit in 1846 [...]

Charlotte Brontë was born April 21, 1816, at Thornton, in Yorkshire, England. Charlotte Brontë was the third of six children of the Rev. Patrick Brontë and his wife, Maria Branwell. In 1820 the family moved to Haworth. The following year, Maria Branwell Brontë died of cancer leaving her children to the care of her sister [...]