Today, Aust 6th, marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alfred, Lord Tennyson the much loved English poet who is often often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry.

Alfred was born 1809, at Somersby in Lincolnshire and was the fourth of twelve children of George and Elizabeth Tennyson. After spending four unhappy years in school he was tutored at home and then studied at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Tennyson wrote a number of phrases that have become commonplaces of the English language, including: Nature, red in tooth and claw, Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die and he is the second most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare.

In 1850, Tennyson succeeded to the position of Poet Laureate, which he held until his own death in 1892, by far the longest tenure of any laureate before or since. He accepted a peerage and became Alfred, Lord Tennyson in 1833. Queen Victoria was an ardent admirer of Tennyson's work, and in 1884 created him Baron Tennyson.

The vast and romantic poetic world of Alfred Lord Tennyson contains many fascinating women, including The Lady of Shalott, who are revealed and depicted with astonishing understanding by Lucy Fleming in the Silksoundbooks audio book Tennysons Ladies, available to download from silksoundbooks.com