Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby, England, from a middle-class line of royal ancestry. Tennyson and his brothers began writing poetry in their teens, and the siblings published a poetry collection when Alfred was only 17. Tennyson attended Cambridge, where he was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal for his poem “Timbuctoo.” He published his first solo poetry collection, Poems Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830 and was soon a popular poet. Tennyson went on to publish several more collections, reaching the pinnacle of his career with his 1850 poem, “In Memoriam A.H.H.” Later that year, he was appointed Poet Laureate. In The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Tennyson is the ninth most-frequently quoted writer.