Alfred Tennyson was born 5 August 1 1809, third surviving child of the Rev. George Clayton Tennyson and Elizabeth Fytche Tennyson. Alfred himself started writing poetry at age eight and had written most of a blank verse play by age fourteen. The year he entered Cambridge, 1827, his first published poetry appeared in Poems by Two Brothers 3. At Cambridge, he made such friends as Edward FitzGerald, Thackeray, and Arthur Henry Hallam. In 1829 Alfred beat out Thackeray, among others, for a poetry prize. The following year, his Poems, "Chiefly Lyrical" won some critical praise.

By 1842, Alfred found himself well and truly famous with the publication of his Poems. Unfortunately, he had decided that his health was bad and let his doctors talk him into not writing or even really reading for almost two years. And just when he'd started writing again, Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote a long poem satirizing such greats as Wordsworth, Keats, and especially Alfred. But Alfred kept writing anyway, finishing the long blank verse poem The Princess in 1847, a poem which also contained some lyric poems as songs. In 1849, a wondrous thing happened-brother Charles was reconciled with his wife. The following year, on 13 June, Alfred and Emily married in great secrecy. By then, Wordsworth had died and the Court was looking for a new Poet Laureate. The job was first offered to the 87-year-old Samuel Rogers, who turned it down. Alfred's name was submitted with two others, but Prince Albert had read In Memoriam, so Alfred was in. He loved being Poet Laureate, though he never quite got used to all the attention from complete strangers. His home life was what was important to him.

Alfred became ill, and for some months worked hard to prepare one last volume of poems for publication. It was published two weeks after his death, on 6 October 1892. He died peacefully, apparently of gout, with his wife and son by his side. He'd outlived most of the great writers of his time, but there were some literary luminaries at the funeral like Thomas Hardy and Arthur Conan Doyle. At Alfred's request, his poem "Crossing the Bar," an epitaph of sorts, is always printed last in any collection of his works.