Selected Letters

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) was an English writer and poet, eldest son of Walter Landor and his wife Elizabeth Savage. He was sent to Rugby School, but was removed at the headmaster's request and studied privately with Mr. Langley, vicar of Ashbourne. In 1793 appeared in a small volume, divided into three books, The Poems of Walter Savage Landor, and, in pamphlet form of nineteen pages, an anonymous Moral Epistle, respectfully dedicated to Earl Stanhope. No poet at the age of twenty ever had more vigour of style and fluency of verse; nor perhaps has any ever shown such masterly command of epigram and satire, made vivid and vital by the purest enthusiasm and most generous indignation. Three years later appeared the first edition of the first great work which was to inscribe his name for ever among the great names in English poetry, Gebir. Among his other famous works are: Count Julian (1812), Imaginary Conversations and Poems (1824-29), Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare, Euseby Treen, Joseph Carnaby, and Silas Gough Clerk (1834).