The Author

Alfred Tennyson was born in1809 at Somersby, Lincolnshire, fourth of twelve children. He escaped the troubled atmosphere of his home when he entered Cambridge University in 1828. There he formed a close friendship with Arthur Hallam, whose death (1833), combined with the poor reception of his own poems, plunged him into a decade-long depression during which he wrote much but published little. The success of "The Princess" and "In Memoriam" and his appointment in 1850 as Poet Laureate established him as the most popular poet of the Victorian era. In 1884 he accepted a peerage and a seat in the House of the Lords. He died in 1892, at the age of 83.

The Work

Timbuctoo (1829)
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830)
Poems (1833)
Poems (1842)
The Princess; a Medley (1847)
In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850)
The Eagle (1851)
To the Queen (1851)
Maud and Other Poems (1855)
Idylls of the King (1859/85)
Tithonus (1860)
Enoch Arden and Other Poems (1864)
The Window; or, the Song of the Wrens (1867)
Flower in the crannied wall (1868)
The Spiteful Letter (1868)
Queen Mary: A Drama (1875)
Harold: A Drama (1876)
The Lover's Tale (1879)
Ballads, and Other Poems (1880)
The Promise of May (1882)
Becket (Drama, 1884)
The Falcon (Drama, 1884)
The Cup (Drama, 1884)
Tiresias, and Other Poems (1885)
Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886)
Demeter, and Other Poems (1889)
Crossing the Bar (1889)
The Dawn (1892)
The Foresters (Drama, 1892)

Appendix

Tennyson homepage
Sources/Colophon