(1834 – 1882) James Thomson was a poet, an an important voiec of nineteenth century rebellion. He is best known for ‘City of Dreadful Night’ first published in Charles Bradlaugh‘s journal The National Reformer. He also wrote under the pen-name ‘Bysshe Vanolis’ (or ‘B.V.’) honouring the poets Shelley and Novalis whom he admired. Thomson was norn in Port [...]
Categories: People, writer, novelist, poet
(2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. Born into the Anglican tradition, Hardy lost his faith in Christian dogma early in life and became an agnostic. He described himself as ‘among the earliest acclaimers of The Origin of Species’ and, indeed, turned to the work of figures [...]
Categories: People, writer, novelist, poet
(1831 – ?) Harriet Law was an active Marxist and secularist. Law was born in Essex an had a Baptist upbringing and became a Sunday School teacher. When G. J. Holyoake spoke at Philpot Street, Whitechapel, in the East End of London, she tried to argue against him in defence Christianity, but in 1855 ‘saw [...]
Categories: activist, People, writer, novelist, poet
(28 October 1907-22 June 1987) John Harold Hewitt was the most significant Ulster poet to emerge before the Sixties generation of Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Michael Longley. Hehad an active political life and was an atheist. His life and work are celebrated in two prominent ways – the annual John Hewitt International Summer School [...]
Categories: People, politician, writer, novelist, poet
(22 November 1819 – 1880) George Eliot (Marian or Mary Ann Evans) was a leading novelist of the Victorian era, whose writings reflect her humanist outlook. She wrote nine full-length novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861) and Middlemarch (1872), as well as short stories and poems. Religious upbringing Eliot [...]
Categories: People, writer, novelist, poet
