Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2

Howitt, William, 1792-1879Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
1M words
Chapters
104

Tags

English Originals Literary Appreciation Historical ReappraisalGroup BiographyHumanistic CareIllustrated GuideSocial ObservationCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2 (of 2) by William HowittAuthor: Howitt, William, 1792-1879,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jun 5, 2014

Editor's review

William Howitt's Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2, is a collection of literary-geographical sketches in the spirit of a walking notebook: writing as a visitor, Howitt records the houses, country lanes, and favorite haunts of poets, weaving together biographical anecdote, local scenery, and passages from their verse. Its value lies not in systematic poetics but in a warmer reading path: it lets readers enter the poets' everyday world through spatial imagination and understand how surroundings nourished their lines. The prose is unhurried and rich in detail, with occasional reflections characteristic of Victorian essays. It works well as supplementary reading for courses on British poetry and as a book to dip into for lovers of literary travel and haunts. There is no need to read it straight through; skip among poet entries and read alongside the relevant poems to feel the interplay of text and landscape. Note that some historical material and anecdotes reflect the limitations of their era and are best enjoyed as appreciative reference rather than strict evidence.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Use the table of contents to jump to poets that interest you rather than reading straight through.
  2. Before each poet, skim one or two representative poems, then read the haunts account for a richer contrast.
  3. Keep a map or digital map at hand and mark the places mentioned, turning reading into a paper literary journey.
  4. Treat anecdotes and quotations with caution; check authoritative biographies when historical facts matter.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
  94. 94
  95. 95
  96. 96
  97. 97
  98. 98
  99. 99
  100. 100
  101. 101
  102. 102
  103. 103
  104. 104

FAQ

Is this book a poetry anthology or a biography? Strictly speaking, neither. It is a collection of essays written after the author visited the homes and haunts of famous British poets, mixing biographical anecdote, descriptions of local scenery, and quotations from poems. It is closer to literary-geographical essay writing, best used as background to reading poetry rather than as a systematic biography.
Do I need to know the poets covered before reading? Not all of them. The book treats poets entry by entry, so you can start with those you know. For unfamiliar poets, look up one or two representative poems first, then read the haunts account; it will go more smoothly and will not hinder your enjoyment of the author's narrative style.
Can the historical information in the book be cited directly? It is not suitable for rigorous citation. The book was written in the nineteenth century, and some anecdotes come from hearsay and period assumptions that may differ from later scholarship. Treat it as appreciative reading, and check authoritative biographies or research when specific historical facts are involved.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Howitt, William, 1792-1879 Author

William Howitt (1792–1879) was an English writer whose biographical details are limited in publicly available sources; five of his works are held in this collection. Judging from these works, his subjects were wide-ranging: The Student-Life of Germany examines foreign customs and youth culture, while the two-volume Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets links literary memory by visiting the places where poets lived, blending biography with travel writing. He also published the story collection Luke Barnicott, and Other Stories and Colonization and Christianity, which touches on the relationship between colonial expansion and religious ethics. Howitt's writing tends toward reportage and the essay, with attention to local scenery and the details of daily life, offering some value for understanding the literary geography and intellectual climate of nineteenth-century Britain.