Leaders in Literature and the Arts

Jane Austen (1775 – 1817)
The novelist whose books were the antecedent of all modern romances, Jane Austen was the daughter of a clergyman and remained a spinster all... Read More →

Fanny Burney (1752 – 1840)
Daughter of the famous musician and musicologist, Charles Burney, Frances Burney was a novelist, diarist, and playwright. She wrote four novels, eight plays, one... Read More →

Lord Byron (1778 – 1824)
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale (yes, Rochdale!) was one of the great poets of the 19th century. His most important works... Read More →

John Keats (1795 – 1821)
Though now considered one of the most important of the Romantic poets, in his own time Keats was criticized and his work skewered by... Read More →

Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769 – 1830)
Lawrence might be considered the visual documentarian of the Regency, as he was one of the most important, and most prolific, portrait painters of... Read More →

Humphry Repton (1752 – 1818)
Humphry Repton was the last great landscape architect of the 18th century, though his style is what we think of today as pure Regency... Read More →

Thomas Rowlandson (1756 – 1827)
Another visual documentarian of the age, Rowlandson made his mark as a caricaturist. He was a student at the Royal Academy and in Paris,... Read More →

Sir Walter Scott (1771 – 1832)
A prolific historical novelist, Scott was, unlike Jane Austen, a widely read and extremely popular author during his own lifetime. His most famous works... Read More →

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822)
Son of a Member of Parliament, Shelley was educated at Eton and Oxford, but espoused radical social and political views that made him unpopular.... Read More →

Sir John Soane (1753 – 1837)
John Soane was an architect who specialized in the Neo-Classical style. He was a professor of architecture at the Royal Academy and was one... Read More →

J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851)
A Romantic painter and watercolorist, Joseph Mallord William Turner can be said to have paved the way for Impressionism with his unique style of... Read More →

William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850)
William Wordsworth helped launch the Romantic movement in poetry with the publication, with Samuel Coleridge, of Lyrical Ballads in 1798. A second edition, with... Read More →