Walter Savage Landor

Walter Savage Landor, an English writer, poet, and activist, was born on January 30, 1775, in Warwick, England to Walter Landor, a physician who inherited a large estate in Staffordshire, and Elizabeth Savage, heiress to a more modest Warwickshire fortune.

Both his early education at Rugby School and short-lived academic stint at Trinity College were emblematic of his rebellious temperament. In 1794, during his second year at Trinity College, Landor was suspended for a year following a shooting incident in which he fired his shotgun at a fellow student. Although he was allowed to return, Landor refused. He then moved to London where he privately studied French, Italian, and Greek.

Landor is most celebrated for Imaginary Conversations (1824-1829), a multi-volume series of prose that engages in dialogue with historical figures across Europe. Other notable works include, Gebir (Slatter and Munday, 1803), an epic poem which earned Landor early critical acclaim; Pericles and Aspasia (Saunders and Otley, 1836); The Hellenics of Walter Savage Landor (Edward Moxon, 1847); The Last Fruit off an Old Tree (Edward Moxon, 1853); and his final collection of poetry published when he was 88 years old, Heroic Idyls, with Additional Poems (T. Cautley Newby, 1863).

He died on September 17, 1864 in Florence, Italy and is buried at English Cemetery, Florence among several other literary figures.