The Isle of Wight's Literary Past
19th Century Writers made the Isle of Wight into an Artists' Colony
During the 19th century the Isle of Wight was the focus of intellectuals, as poets, writers, artists, philosophers and statesmen jouneyed to the Isle in the Solent.
One of the most famous poems in the English Language, The Charge of the Light Brigade, was written on the Isle of Wight by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He lived at Farringford House, Freshwater and his daily walks along the coastal Downs were said to have inspired him. He was a frequent visitor at Osborne House, the Italianate family home of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, and he entertained many intellectuals and political thinkers at Farringford House.
Writers and Poets on the Isle of Wight
John Keats: The greatest romantic poet of them all, John Keats (1795-1821) commenced writing Endymion on the Isle of Wight in 1819. He spent most of that summer, during which he was terminally ill, at Eglantine Cottage at Shanklin. Lines from Endymion are quoted so often that they have almost become a cliché
- A thing of beauty is a joy forever, It's loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; ....
Longfellow: In 1868 the American poet Henry Wordsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) also came to Shanklin and was captivated by the place. He stayed at the little thatch-roof Crab Inn in the village, an Inn still providing today's visitors to Shanklin with food and drink.
The tiny village of Bonchurch with its duck pond attracted a whole colony of writers and thinkers. The Swinburnes bought East Dene in 1839 and the future Pre-Raphaelite poet Algernon Swinbourne is buried in the nearby graveyard of St. Boniface Church.: William Sewell of the Oxford Movement arrived soon after the Swinburnes and in 1849, Charles Dickens (1812-1870), the greatest of all Victorian novelists, came to live at Winterbourne House where he wrote David Copperfield. George Eliot, the outstanding female novelist of the period, was a frequent visitor to the island during 1863.
Alfred and Emily Tennyson first came to their estate at Farringford in 1853, shortly after he'd been made Poet Laureate. Tennyson had an interest in the moral dilemmas of the time, an interest which is mirrored in the people he invited to visit him. In 1860 Charles Darwin, the greatest scientist of the time, was a guest. Garibaldi, who had led a thousand red-shirted volunteers in the overthrow of the Bourbon kingdom of Naples and Sicily, came to visit in 1860, and while he was there, his friend and fellow Italian revolutionary, Mazzini, also came to visit. Much to the chagrin of Queen Victoria, the people of the island afforded Garibaldi a greater ovation than they had ever offered her.
Julia Margaret Cameron was a friend of Tennyson. She was to invent a new art form in photography and in a short but brilliant career, she won gold, silver and bronze medals for her work. The Cameron's home in Freshwater, Dimbola Lodge, was the centre for the artistic flowering of this section of the island, and concerts, theatricals and dances were held their regularly. A guest was once heard to exclaim “Is there no one who is commonplace here?”
Well into the 20th and 21st century the island remained popular with artists and writers, among them Kipling, George Bernard Shaw, W.H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, J.B. Priestley and John Betjeman.
