Algernon Charles Swinburne was born in Grosvenor Place, London on 5 April 1837.
Swinburne attended Eton in 1849 before entering Balliol College, Oxford in 1856.
He left Oxford without graduating in 1860. He contributed to periodicals including The Spectator and Fortnightly Review. The first poem to be
published under his name was Atalanta in Calydon (1865), which was received with critical acclaim. Other notable poems include Hymn To Proserpine and the virtually unreadable self-parody Nephelidia. He also wrote the political work Songs before Sunrise and continued to write until a few years before his death. He was a friend and associate of artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: most surprising perhaps, given his avowed decadence and her devout Christianity is his friendship with Christina Rossetti. He died of influenza on 10 April 1909.