Old-poets in English, by popularity

1. Dowland, John   English. Born: 1563, Died: 1626, 6 poems.
   Dowland was born into an improvising tradition, and it is likely that when he played he did not have a piece of music in front of him - most of the surviving manuscripts were written down by or for amateurs, not for professionals.
2. Hood, Thomas   English. Born: 1799, Died: 1845, 102 poems.
   Remembered for both his comic and serious work, Thomas Hood was an active, widely published English poet and editor.
3. Wordsworth, William   English. Born: 1770, Died: 1850, 351 poems.
4. Philips, Katherine   English. Born: 1631, Died: 1664, 23 poems.
   The first authorized collection of her verse was not published until 1667. A century and a half later, the Romantic poet John Keats admired her work in a letter to a friend.
5. Noyes, Alfred   English. Born: 1880, Died: 1958 (modern), 92 poems.
   First collection of poetry published when he was twenty-two, a noted poet, critic, essayist who refused to embrace the mordernist movement.
6. MacNeice, Louis   English. Born: 1907, Died: 1963 (modern), 17 poems.
   Like many modern English poets, MacNeice found an audience for his work through British radio. Some of his best-known plays, were originally written for radio and later published. In addition to his poetry and radio dramas, MacNeice also wrote the ve
7. Davenant, Sir William   English. Born: 1606, Died: 1668, 10 poems.
   Before his career was interrupted by the war, he had established himself not only as a playwright and manager, but as a poet by the publication of Madagascar;
8. Raine, Kathleen   English. Born: 1908, Died: 2003 (modern), 25 poems.
   A poet and scholar whose verse explored the realms of nature and the spirit.
9. Wyatt, Sir Thomas   English. Born: 1503, Died: 1542, 30 poems.
   None of Wyatt's poems were ever printed in his lifetime and his first published work was, Certain Psalms...Drawn into English Metre, (1549).
10. Browning, Robert   English. Born: 1812, Died: 1889, 148 poems.
    Robert did not become recognized as a poet, until after Elizabeth's death in 1861. After which, he was honored for the rest of his life as a literary figure
11. Lewis, Cecil Day   English. Born: 1904, Died: 1972 (modern), 8 poems.
12. Raleigh, Sir Walter   English. Born: 1552, Died: 1618, 30 poems.
    World famous explorer whose prose and poetry were influenced by his many conquests and misadventures.
13. French, Percy   English. Born: 1854, Died: 1920, 9 poems.
    A well-loved Irish songwriter, poet, entertainer and painter.
14. Lawrence, D H   English. Born: 1885, Died: 1930, 122 poems.
    Renowned twentieth century English novelist and poet. He believed in writing poetry true to the feeling of the inner essence of his subject.
15. Goldsmith, Oliver   English. Born: 1728, Died: 1774, 47 poems.
    Through the publication of The Bee and the Life of Beau Nash, Goldsmith achieved considerable popularity, and his fortunes began to mend. He belonged to the circle of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and was one of "The Club."
16. Thackeray, William Makepeace   English. Born: 1811, Died: 1863, 86 poems.
    William Makepeace Thackeray was one of the great novelists of the English Victorian Age. His Vanity Fair is one of the finest and best-known novels in English literature. Thackeray wrote in a colorful, lively style, with a simple vocabulary
17. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett   English. Born: 1806, Died: 1861, 118 poems.
    "How do I love thee, let me count the ways." These words, penned by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, are some of the most widely-known love lyrics in Victorian English poetry.
18. Johnson, Dr. Samuel   English. Born: 1709, Died: 1784, 48 poems.
    The towering figure of 18h Century English letters.
19. Campbell, Thomas   English. Born: 1777, Died: 1844, 26 poems.
    Campbell was a versatile, professional writer and not solely a poet. He wrote for newspapers, compiled biographies, contributed articles to encyclopaedias, and from 1820 to 1831 edited The New monthly review. His Specimens of the British poets, exten
20. Thomas, Edward   English. Born: 1878, Died: 1917, 92 poems.
    A British poet, born in 1878. His poems are sensitive, subjective, and often sad, and they reveal his passion for nature and the countryside.
21. Hopkins, Gerard Manley   English. Born: 1844, Died: 1889, 81 poems.
    Virtually unknown in his lifetime, we have his poetry today only because it was collected and published by his friends after his death
22. Spenser, Edmund   English. Born: 1552, Died: 1599, 171 poems.
    Famous for his collective book titled "The faery Queen"
23. Lovelace, Richard   English. Born: 1618, Died: 1658, 144 poems.
    Lovelace was an Oxford educated son of an English knight. His royalist sympathies were his financial undoing. In terms of his poetry, he is most remembered for his graceful and much quoted lyrics for To Althea, from Prison and /To Lucasta, G
24. Smith, Stevie   English. Born: 1902, Died: 1971 (modern), 40 poems.
    Florence Margaret (Stevie) Smith was born on September 20, 1902 in Hull, England.  Much of her inspiration came from theology and the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.
25. Barham, Richard Harris   English. Born: 1785, Died: 1845, 25 poems.
    He sat up because he found, as the morning advanced, his ideas flowed more freely, and his mental energies became in every way more active than at any other period of the twenty-four hours.
26. Abercrombie, Lascelles   English. Born: 1881, Died: 1938, 10 poems.
    Abercrombie's conviction that poetry was going through an exciting period of change, and his effort to develop (in theory and practice) the concept of realism in poetry, had an important effect on subsequent literary developments.
27. Austin, Alfred   English. Born: 1835, Died: 1913, 249 poems.
    Austin published regularly for half a century and succeeded Alfred, Lord Tennyson as poet laureate of England in 1896
28. Acton, Eliza   English. Born: 1799, Died: 1859, 63 poems.
    Eliza Acton wrote what was probably the first basic cookbook for the housewife rather than the trained chef with a full kitchen staff, 'Modern Cookery for Private Families' (London, 1845)
29. Letts, Winifred Mary   English. Born: 1882, Died: 1972 (modern), 16 poems.
30. Hemans, Felicia Dorothea   English. Born: 1793, Died: 1835, 181 poems.
    Her first book of Poems was published in 1808. It was remarkable work to come from a fourteen-year-old, but it received some harsh reviews.
31. Housman, A E   English. Born: 1859, Died: 1936, 124 poems.
    His verse is noted for its economy of words and directness of statement, pictures of the English countryside, and the fusion of humor and pathos. The passing of youth and the inevitability of death is his most characteristic theme
32. Wordsworth, Dorothy   English. Born: 1771, Died: 1855, 1 poems.
    English prose writer, the younger sister of poet William Wordsworth, famous for her diaries and 'recollections'. Several of Dorothy Wordsworth's own poems or notes in her journal were included in various editions of her brother's poetical works. She
33. Eliot, George   English. Born: 1819, Died: 1880, 19 poems.
    Mary Anne adopted George Eliot as her nom de plume. She later told John Cross that she chose the name because "George was Mr. Lewes's Christian name, and Eliot was a good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word"
34. Taylor, Jane   English. Born: 1783, Died: 1824, 34 poems.
    Jane Taylor was born in England in 1783. She, along with her sister Ann, wrote hymns and poems for children, including Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
35. Bourdillon, Francis   English. Born: 1852, Died: 1921, 23 poems.
36. Southey, Robert   English. Born: 1774, Died: 1843, 96 poems.
    Southey remained Poet Laureate of Britain for 30 years, and eventually died in 1843.  He was succeeded by William Wordsworth.
37. Gray, Thomas   English. Born: 1716, Died: 1771, 11 poems.
    An influential and highly regarded though not very productive 18th century British poet
38. Moore, Thomas   English. Born: 1779, Died: 1852, 157 poems.
    Irish poet, friend of Lord Byron and P.B. Shelley. Moore's writings range from lyric to satire, from prose romance to history and biography.
39. MacDonald, George   English. Born: 1824, Died: 1905, 450 poems.
40. Read, Sir Herbert   English. Born: 1893, Died: 1968 (modern), 5 poems.
    Read wrote two volumes of poetry based upon his war experiences: Songs of Chaos (1915) and Naked Warriors, published in 1919, along with two volumes of autobiography: In Retreat (1925) and Ambush (1930).  He became
41. Monkhouse, William Cosmo   English. Born: 1840, Died: 1901, 26 poems.
42. Tennyson, Alfred Lord   English. Born: 1809, Died: 1892, 175 poems.
    T.S. Eliot has called him 'the great master of metric as well as of melancholia' and that he possessed the finest ear of any English poet since Milton.
43. Marlowe, Christopher   English. Born: 1564, Died: 1593, 10 poems.
    Thought by some Historians to be Shakespeare
44. Chudleigh, Lady Mary   English. Born: 1656, Died: 1710, 4 poems.
    Although she did not begin publishing any works until 10 years before her death, they were reprinted 4 times before she died. Her poems were quoted in various anthologies throughout the 18th and 19th centuries
45. Jonson, Ben   English. Born: 1572, Died: 1637, 93 poems.
    English Jacobean dramatist, lyric poet, and literary critic. One of England's most important dramatists.
46. Greenaway, Kate   English. Born: 1846, Died: 1901, 44 poems.
47. Cleveland, John   English. Born: 1613, Died: 1658, 7 poems.
    English poet, the most popular of his time, and then and in later times the most commonly abused metaphysical poet.
48. Donne, John   English. Born: 1572, Died: 1631, 173 poems.
    He is known as the founder of the Metaphysical Poets.
49. Lamb, Charles   English. Born: 1775, Died: 1834, 130 poems.
    An eighteenth century English poet and journalist. He contributed poems to the collections Poems on Various Subjects, Blank Verse and Pride's Cure.
50. Crashaw, Richard   English. Born: 1612, Died: 1649, 33 poems.
    Roman Catholic poet of the 17th Century.

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