A C Swinburne Born April 5th

Algernon Charles Swinburne was born into an aristocratic family on April 5th, 1837 in London, England. Swinburne first began writing poetry while attending Eton College, followed by studies at Oxford's Balliol College. While at Oxford he met Pre-Raphaelite painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris. According to Glenn Everett, Associate Professor of English, University of Tennessee at Martin, Rossetti once had to reprimand Swinburne and another male for interrupting the artist's work by creating a disturbance while sliding naked down the banisters. Oscar Wilde commented that Swinburne was "a braggart in matters of vice, who had done everything he could to convince his fellow citizens of his homosexuality and bestiality without being in the slightest degree a homosexual or a bestialiser."

Read more about Swinburne at The Victorian Web and Swinburne's Wikipedia entry.