The son of a wealthy physician, Walter Savage Landor studied at Rugby and Trinity College, Oxford (1793) where resided a year before being rusticated. After publishing his first volume of poems in 1795 he spent most of the next twenty years living in Wales. In 1808 Landor served as a volunteer in Spain during the Napoleonic wars; in 1814 he departed for Italy where, still courting controversy, he lived for most of the remainder of his long life.
TEXT RECORDS:
1810[Letter to Robert Southey on Spenser.]
1824Imaginary Conversations: Queen Elizabeth and Cecil.
1826Imaginary Conversations: Johnson and Tooke. Second Conversation.
1828[Elegy for John Keats.]
PUBLICATIONS:
Poems. 1795.
Moral epistle respectfully dedicated to Earl Stanhope. 1795.
To the burgesses of Warwick. 1797.
Gebir: a poem in seven books. 1798.
Poems from the Arabic and Persion with notes. 1800.
Poetry by the author of Gebir. 1800.
Iambi incerto auctore. 1802?
Simonidea. 1806.
Three letters written in Spain. 1809.
Ode ad Gustavum regem; ode ad Gustavum exulem. 1810.
Count Julian: a tragedy.
Commentary on memoirs of Mr Fox. 1812.
Letters addressed to Lord Liverpool. 1814.
Letter from Mr Landor to Mr Jervis. 1814.
Idyllia nova quinque heroum atque heroidum. 1815.
Poche osservazinoni sullo stato attuale di que' populi. 1821.
Imaginary conversations of literary men and statesmen. 1824, 1826, 1828, 1829.
Gebir, Count Julian, and other poems. 1831.
Citation and examination of William Shakspeare. 1834.
Pericles and Aspasia. 2 vols, 1836.
The letters of a conservative. 1836.
Terry Hogan: an eclogue. 1836.
A satire on satirists and admonition to detractors. 1836.
Literary hours by various friends. 1837.
The pentarmeron and pentalogia. 1837.
Andrea of Hungary and Giovanna of Naples. 1839.
Fra Rupert. 1840.
To Robert Browning. 1845.
The works of Landor. 2 vols, 1846.
The hellenics enlarged and completed. 1847.
Poemata et inscriptiones. 1847.
The Italics of Landor. 1848.
Savagius Landor Lamartino. 1848?
Imaginary conversation of King Carlo-Alberto and the Cuchess Belgioiso on the affairs and prospects of Italy. 1848.
Carmen ad heroianam. 1848?
Epistola ad Pium IX. 1849.
Epistola ad Romanos. 1849.
Ad Cossuthum et Bemum. 1849.
Statement of occurences at Llandbedr. 1849.
Popery, British and foreign. 1851.
On Kossuth's voyage to America. 1851.
Tyrranicide. 1851.
Imaginary conversations of Greeks and Romans. 1853.
The last fruit of an old tree. 1853.
Letters of an American mainly on Russia and revolution. 1854.
Antony and Octavius: scenes for the study. 1856.
Letter from Landor to R. W. Emerson. 1856.
Landor and the Honorable Mrs Yescombe. 1857.
Mr Landor threatened. 1857.
Dry sticks from Landor. 1858.
Mr Landor's remarks on a suit. 1858.
Savonarola e il priore di San Marco. 1860.
Heroic idyls with additional poems. 1863.
Works, ed. John Forster. 8 vols, 1876.
Letters, ed. Stephen Wheeler. 1899.
Works, ed. T. E. Welby and S. Wheeler. 16 vols, 1927.
Poems, ed. T. E. Welby and S. Wheeler. 3 vols, 1937.
Landor as Critic, ed. by Charles L. Proudfit. 1979.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Rugby School
Trinity College Oxford
military
poet
essayist
dramatist
The Courier
The Athenaeum
Blackwood's Magazine
The Keepsake
Book of Beauty
Rev. William Benwell
Rev. Henry Francis Cary
Joseph Cottle
John F. M. Dovaston
Margaret Holford
Leigh Hunt
Anna Brownell Jameson
William Meyler
Sir James Mackintosh
Mary Russell Mitford
Samuel Parr
Robert Southey
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; CBEL (3rd ed); DLB.
Dictionary of Living Authors (1816); J. C. Hare, "On Landor's Imaginary Conversations" London Magazine 9 (May 1824) 523-41; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); "Landor's Poems" Fraser's Magazine 3 (July 1831) 736-44; Allan Cunningham, "Literature of the last Fifty Years" The Athenaeum (16 November 1833) 772; S. C. Hall, in The Book of Gems (1838); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); R. H. Horne, in New Spirit of the Age (1844); George Gilfillan, in Gallery of Literary Portraits (1845); William Howitt, Homes and Haunts of the ... British Poets (1847); David Macbeth Moir, Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century (1851; 1856) 99-100; Mary Russell Mitford, "Poetry that Poets Love" in Recollections (1852) 304-21; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Illustrated London News 45 (1864) 385-86; obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 217 (December 1864) 791-92; John Forster, Landor: a Biography 2 vols (1869); Frederick Denison Maurice, "Walter Savage Landor and Henry Crabb Robinson" Macmillan's Magazine 20 (1869); The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); Sidney Colvin, Walter Savage Landor (1881); Margaret Oliphant, in Literary History of England (1882); Foster, Alumni Oxon (1887-91); Edward Waterman Evans, Jr., Walter Savage Landor. A Critical Study (1892); Frederic Boase, Modern English Biography (1892-1921); Francis Thompson, "Landor" Academy (27 February 1897) 258-259; Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Thomas James Wise and Stephen Wheeler, A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Walter Savage Landor (1919); Stanley T. Williams, "Walter Savage Landor as a Critic of Literature" PMLA 38 (December 1923) 906-928; Felice Elkin, Walter Savage Landor's Studies of Italian Life and Literature (1934); R. H. Super, "The Publication of Landor's Early Works" PMLA 63 (June 1948) 577-603; R. H. Super, Landor: a Biography (1954); R. H. Super, The Publication of Landor's Works (1954); Malcolm Elwin, Landor: A Replevin (1958); Robert Pinsky, Landor's Poetry (1968); Renwick, OHEL (1963); Jack, OHEL (1963); Ernest Dilworth, Landor (1971).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Walter Savage Landor:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Walter Savage Landor:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)