Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was one of the literary sensations of the Victorian period. His iconoclastic poetry and prose challenged attitudes to sex, politics, religion and censorship. Not only writing some of the most original lyric poetry of the time and pioneering criticism, Swinburne became a cultural icon. In the 1860s his very name was a symbol of progressive forces emerging in a repressive age. Readers across the world identified with the paganism and humanism of his poetry. Swinburne's was a turbulent life lived against a backdrop of beautiful settings in the Isle of Wight and Northumberland, and shared with a host of Victorian luminaries, or artists and writers such as D G Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal, Burne-Jones, Morris and Simeon Solomon. It is a life touched by early tragedy and romantic disappointment, by extraordinary fame and abject loneliness, by masochism and alcoholism, but above all by an unquenchable vivacity. At the centre was the charmingly spoken, excitable genius whom Burne-Jones described as 'quite the most poetic personality I have ever known.' the artistic prodigy who seemed to have read almost everything, who was as happy revelling in the sea as in literary discourse. Based on new research and many unpublished letters, Rikky Rooksby sheds light on Swinburne's personality and relationships, and discusses how Swinburne's poetry develops from early pessimism to a recovered joy in the energies of the natural world. This biography is a sympathetic and fresh account of one of the most colourful figures in English literature.

Focusing on Algernon Charles Swinburne's later writings, this collection makes a case for the seriousness and significance of the writer's mature work. While Swinburne's scandalous early poetry has received considerable critical attention, the thoughtful, rich, spiritually and politically informed poetry that began to emerge in his thirties has been generally neglected. This volume addresses the need for a fuller understanding of Swinburne's career that includes his fiction, aesthetic ideology, and analyses of Shakespeare and the great French writers. Among the key features of the collection is the contextualizing of Swinburne's work in new contexts such as Victorian mythography, continental aestheticism, positivism, and empiricism. Individual essays examine, among other topics, the dialect poems and Swinburne's position as a regional poet, Swinburne as a transition figure from nineteenth-century aesthetic writing to the professionalized criticism that dominates the twentieth century, Swinburne's participation in the French literary scene, Swinburne's friendships with women writers, and the selections made for anthologies from the nineteenth century to the present. Taken together, the essays offer scholars a richer portrait of Swinburne's importance as a poet, critic, and fiction writer.