The Algernon Charles Swinburne Project:

A Swinburne Chronology: 1837-1909

John A. Walsh

date	life	literary context	historical context
1837	Swinburne born1837-04-05Algernon Charles Swinburne is born in London to naval captain (later admiral) Charles Henry Swinburne, second son of Sir John Edward Swinburne, and Lady Jane Swinburne.	Carlye: History of the French Revolution. Hugo. Les Voix intérieures . Landor. The Pentameron and Pentalogia. Lockhart: Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott.	Accession of Victoria. National Gallery opens. Turner : Interior at Petworth.
1838		Dickens: Oliver Twist. Hugo. Ruy Blas.	Anti-Corn-Law League founded in Manchester.
1839		Carlyle: Chartism. Darwin: The Voyage of the Beagle. Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby.	First Opium War. Chartist petition rejected by House of Commons. Turner exhibits his Fighting Temeraire. Daguerrotype process in photography made public. Prout : Sketches in France, Switzerland and Italy.
1840		Hugo. Les Rayons et les ombres .	Marriage of Victoria and Albert. Penny post introduced. Houses of Parliament ReconstructionBarry begins rebuilding Houses of Parliament (to 1860).
1841		Carlyle: On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History. Emerson: Essays. Pugin: The Principles of Christian Architecture.	Peel becomes Prime MinisterPeel becomes Prime Minister and instigates series of tariff reforms with view to introducing free trade. Newman's Tract XC. London Library founded. Fox Talbot's photographic process patented.
1842		Hugo. Le Rhin. Tennyson: Collected Poems.	Peel introduces income tax. Chadwick's Report on Sanitation Edwin Chadwick publishes his report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain. Mines Act Passed The Act forbids employment of women and children underground. Young England movement found by Disraeli and others.
1843		Carlyle: Past and Present. Hugo. Les Burgraves. Mill: System of Logic. Borrow: The Bible in Spain. Ruskin: Modern Painters. Vol. 1.	Royal Commision AppointedPeel's government appoints royal commission on The State of Large Towns and Populous Districts.
1844		Haydon: Lectures on Painting and Desing. A. P. Stanley: Life of Dr. Arnold. Kinglake: Eothen. Leigh Hunt: Imagination and Fancy. Chambers: Vestiges of Creation.	Another Factory Act ProposedShaftesbury introduces a further Factory Act limiting hours of factory work for women and children. Turner : Rain, Steam, and Speed. First cooperative storeThe first cooperative store opens in Rochdale.
1845		Disraeli: Sybil. J. D. Harding: The Principles and Practice of Art.	Famine in Ireland.
1846		Strauss: The Life of Jesus. Grote: History of Greece. Lear: A Book of Nonsense. Ruskin: Modern Painters. Vol. 2.	Repeal of Corn Laws. Fall of Peel. Split in Conservative party.
1847		C. Brontë: Jane Eyre. E. Brontë: Wuthering Heights. Landor. The Hellenics of Walter Savage Landor. Enlarged and Completed.	Factory Act PassedThe Factory Act of 1847 limited the amount work women and children under 18 could do a day in a textile mill. Due to the law, the work day was shortened to about 10 hours. Simpson's experiments with chloroform J.Y. Simpson's begins experimenting with chloroform, which leads to the development of general anaesthetics.
1848	Brooke RectorySwinburne sent to live at Brooke Rectory, on the western side of the Isle of Wight, to be prepared for Eton by the Reverend Foster Fenwick (1790-1858).	Thackery: Vanity Fair. Gaskell: Mary Barton. Dickens: Dombey and Son. Mill: Principles of Political Economy. Landor. The Italics of Walter Savage Landor.	Year of Revolutions in Europe. Fall of Metternich and of Louis Philippe. Collapse of Chartist movement. First Public Health Act in Britain. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood foundedWilliam Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti begin the Pre-Raphelite Brotherhood artistic group and movement. Marx and Engels publish Communist Manifesto.
1849	Meets Wordsworth1849-09In September, visits Lake District with family. Meets Wordsworth. EtonSwinburne attends Eton and is placed in the care of his tutor, James Leigh Joynes, and Joynes' wife. Unhappy RevengeComposes the four-act play, Unhappy Revenge.	Macaulay: History of England. Kingsley: Alton Locke. Ruskin: The Seven Lamps of Architecture	Roman Republic FallsMazzini's short-lived Roman republic falls to French army. Other European revolutions suppressed and period of reaction follows. Millais : Isabella.
1850		Tennyson: In Memoriam. Wordsworth: The Prelude. Ruskin: Collected Poems	Don Pacifico AffairAn incident where Pacifico, a Jew born in Gibraltar, at the time a British possession, had his house attacked by a group of antisemites and sought compensation from the government for his loses. The incident was highlighted by British Foreign Secretary Palmerston's 'Civis Romanus Sum' speech in which he proposed Britain protect all their rightful citizens, no matter what land they live in. Public Libraries Act Passed The Act leads to foundation of municipal libraries throughout Britain. Millais : Christ in the House of His Parents. Rossetti : Ecce Ancilla Domini.
1851		Mayhew: London Labour and the London Poor. Ruskin: The Stones of Venice. Vol. 1. Pre-Raphaelitism.	Great Exhibition in Paxton's Crystal Palace. Millais : The Return of the Dove to the Ark . Ophelia. William Holman Hunt : The Hireling Shepard. Death of Turner (Ruskin is a trustee of his will).
1852	Prince Consort's PrizeAwarded Prince Consort's Prize for Modern Languages.	Thackery: Henry Esmond Balzac: Maximes and pensées. Hugo. Napoléon le Petit .	Second Empire in France. William Holman Hunt : Our English Coasts. The Awakening Conscience. Madox Brown : The Pretty Baa-Lambs. C.H. Spurgeon begins preaching at Exeter Hall, London.
1853	Leaves Eton1853-07In July, Swinburne is sent to Cambo, Northumberland to be prepared for Oxford by Revd John Wilkinson.	Arnold: The Scholar-Gipsy. Hugo. Les Châtiments. Ruskin: The Stones of Venice. Vol. 2. Ruskin: The Stones of Venice. Vol. 3. Landor. Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans. Landor. The Last Fruit off an Old Tree.
1854	📄 A letter… I suppose you had Holy Communion to-day as well as we here. I thought this morning of that, and how nice it was to be all communicating together on your birthday. I can go out again now, my cold being quite gone. I don't mind the cod's liver oil much, it seems such odd stuff to be taking! oil out of the liver of a cod! I get to Church again, which I am very glad of. I mean never if I can to neglect going, as I fear I sometimes did before, when perhaps I might have gone, but was not obliged: now I have been so long without it, with my colds. 1. To Captain Charles Henry Swinburne [Swinburne's father], 2 April 1854. Letters. 1:1 Seeks to enlist as Cavalry OfficerParents refuse to allow Swinburne to become a cavalry officer.	Dickens: Hard Times. Patmore: The Angel in the House. Ruskin: Lectures on Art and Architecture.	Crimean War (to 1856). 25 October. The Battle of Balaclava. British Medical Association founded. Dissenters allowed to marticulate at Oxford. Maurice founds the Working Men's College. William Holman Hunt : The Light of the World.
1855	Studies under Revd Russell Woodford Visits Germany1855-07	Browning: Men and Women. Arnold: Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse. Trollope: The Warden. Gaskell: North and South. Whitman. Leaves of Grass.	Palmerston becomes Prime Minister (to 1858). Madox Brown : The Last of England. Hughes : April Love. Woodward and Deane's University MuseumWork starts on Woodward and Deane's University Museum, Oxford, an attempt at 'Ruskinian' Gothic architecture.
1856	Balliol College, Oxford Swinburne attends Balliol College, Oxford. Becomes close friends with Oxford professor and famous classicist Benjamin Jowett. Joins the Old Mortality Society, an intellectual group founded by John Nichol. Leaves Oxford in 1859.	Froude: History of England. Hugo. Les Contemplations. Landor. Antony and Octavius. Scenes for the Study. Ruskin: Modern Painters. Vol. 3. Modern Painters. Vol. 4.	Millais : Autumn Leaves. The Blind Girl. William Holman Hunt : The Scapegoat. John Brett : The Glacier of Rosenlaui. Dissenters enabled to take degrees at Cambridge.
1857	Meets the Pre-Raphaelites Swinburne meets the Pre-Raphaelite artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, and Edward Burne-Jones while the three are at work painting Arthurian fescoes in the Union Debating Hall at Oxford. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship with the Rossettis (Dante Gabriel, William Michael, and Christina), Morris, and Burne-Jones. Undergraduate PapersPublishes essays and poems in Undergraduate Papers, the monthly journal of Old Mortality. Becomes friends with John Nichol1857-04 Article on CongreveComposes an article on William Congreve, the English playwright and poet, for the Imperial Dictionary. Fails to Win NewdigateDoes not win Newdigate for his poem "The Temple of Janus."	Dickens: Little Dorrit. Hughes: Tom Brown's Schooldays. Gaskell: Life of Charlotte Brontë. Barret Browning: Aurora Leigh. Baudelaire: Les Fleurs du mal. Flaubert: Madame Bovary. Ruskin: The Elements of Drawing. The Political Economy of Art.	Indian Mutiny. Matrimonial Causes Act PassedThe Act sets up divorce courts for England and Wales. South Kensington Museum (arts and sciences) opens.
1858	📄 A letter… I long to be with you by firelight between the sunset and the sea to have talk of Sordello; it is one of my canonical scriptures. Does he sleep and forget? I think yes. Did the first time Palma's mouth trembled to touch his in the golden rose-lands of Paradise, a sudden power of angelic action come over him? I suspect, not utterly companionless. Sometimes one knows—not now: but I suppose he slept years off before she kissed him. In Heaven she grew too tired and thin to sing well, and her face grew whiter than its aureole with pain and want of him. And if, like the other Saint, she wept, the tears fell upon his shut lids and fretted the eyes apart as they trickled. Who knows these matters? Only we keep the honey-stain of hair. 10. To Edwin Hatch, 17 February 1858 Letters. 1:16-17 Visits Tennyson1858-01In January, Swinburne visits Tennyson at Farringford. Becomes friends with Lady Trevelyan1858-06 Taylorian Scholarship1858-06In June, wins the Taylorian Scholarship for French and Italian.	Clough: Amours de Voyage. Morris: The Defense of Guenvere and Other Poems. Landor. Dry Sticks, Fagoted by Walter Savage Landor. Smiles: Self-Help.	Fenian Brotherhood founded. Sir Richard Burton discovers Lake Tanganyika. Brunel's 'Great Eastern' steamship launched. Brett : The Val d'Aosta.
1859	📄 A letter… I have got artist Blake's Dante—seven plates—stunners. Also his Job. I shall bring them north next year. I wish to goodness I was going up this winter but I shan't be let, with that blessed Oxford ahead. Have you seen Victor Hugo's Légende des Siècles? It's the grandest book that has been published there or here for years. The mediaeval poems in it—for instance Ratbert—simply whip creation into mush and molasses. Item—I have got the immortal Whitman's Leaves of Grass and there are jolly good things in it, I allow. Do lend yours to Lady Trevelyan. Also entreat her to abstain from Hugo's Ratbert till I come and read it to her. 19. To William Bell Scott, 16 December 1859. Letters. 1:27-28 London with Pre-RaphaelitesMakes trips to London to visit Rossetti and others of the Pre-Raphaelite circle. NavestockFails Classics exam and sent to Navestock, Essex to read modern history with Revd William Stubbs.	Darwin: The Origin of Species. Landor: The Hellenics of Walter Savage landor; Comprising Heroic Idyls, etc.Landor's The Hellenics of Walter Savage landor; Comprising Heroic Idyls, etc. is published in a New edition and enlarged. Mill: On Liberty. Tennyson: Idylls of the King. Fitzgerald: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám. Eliot: Adam Bede. Hugo. La Légende des siècles. 1859-08-28Leigh Hunt dies. 1859-12-08De Quincey dies. 1859-12-28Macaulay dies.	National Portrait Gallery opens. Derby's bill for Parliamentary reform defeated. Palmerston again Prime Minister (to 1865). Italian war of liberation against Austrian rule. Morris's 'Red House', designed by Phillip Web.
1860	Returns to OxfordPasses Classics examination, but later withdraws from finals and leaves Oxford. Moves to London The Queen Mother and Rosamond.	Collins: The Woman in White. Ruskin: Modern Painters. Vol. 5. Unto This Last.	Garibaldi conquers Sicily. Lincoln President of USA. Consolidation of criminal code begins in England.
1861	Visits Mentone and Italy. Income from father established.Swinburne is given an annual income of £400 pension by his father to pursue a literary career in London. Lord Houghton and BurtonBefriends Richard Monckton Milnes (later Lord Houghton) and Richard Burton, the explorer.	Mill: Utillitarianism. Dickens: Great Expectations. Palgrave : The Golden Treasury.	Death of Prince Albert. American Civil War. Victor Emmanuel becomes first king of a united Italy. Emancipation of serfs in Russia. Creation of The FirmMorris, Rossetti, Burne Jones, Madox Brown and architect Phillip Web form the Firm, for the design and production of wallpaper and furniture.
1862	Publishes in the Spectator.Publishes poetry and essays in the Spectator, including reviews of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal and Hugo's Les Misérables and a defense of Meredith's Modern Love. Introction to de Sade.Introduced to the works of the Marquis de Sade by Milnes. 📄 A letter… Rossetti and I are going to live together as soon as we move—of course he could not stay in the old house, and asked me to come with him. Luckily I had put off deciding on a lodging as it would have been a great plague to change again. In the autumn we get into a house at Chelsea—in Cheyne Walk, facing the trees and river—with an old garden. The house is taken (like every other nice one) for the Exhibition season, so we must make shift somewhere till then… . 32. To Lady Jane Henrietta Swinburne, 13 March [1862]. Letters. 1:50 📄 A letter… I am glad you are getting better, and even your unprovoked anathema on the inoffensive hand that writes this shall not prevent me from regretting the infirmity of yours. That is apostolic, you will admit. But, as I really do not see why you are to wish me disabled from writing (which I should be sorry for just now, as I want to finish some old work, begin some new work, and make a little practical headway in the meantime) I shall take a cruel revenge by writing you a letter of shameless extent. I have heaps of things I want to inflict the hearing of on you. So if you are not in a condition to be cattered at you had better burn this. 34. To Richard Monckton Milnes, 18 August [1862]. Letters. 1:53	Hugo. Les Misérables. Meredith: Modern Love. C. Rossetti: Goblin Market. Spencer: First Principles. Ruskin: Essays on Poltical Economy	Bismark chief minister of Prussia.
1863	ChelseaLives with Rossetti and Morris at Chelsea, until 1864. Befriends the painter Simeon Solomon 1863-03Visits Paris with Whistler Edith DiesSwinburne's favorite sister, Edith, dies. Isle of WightStays on the Isle of Wight with his cousin, Mary Gordon, and her family and begins Atalanta in Calydon.	Mill: Utilitarianism. Lyell: The Antiquity of Man. Huxley: Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature. Landor: Heroic Idyls, with Additional Poems. Eliot: Romola. Kingsley: The Water Babies.	Red Cross founded in Geneva. First underground railway opens in London.
1864	📄 A letter… To which missive of mine came a note of invitation which I answered by setting off again for his [Walter Savage Landor's] lodging. AFter losing myself for an hour in the accursed Borgo S. Frediano I found it at last, and found him as alert, brilliant and altogether delicious as i suppose others may have found him twenty years since. I cannot thank you enough for procuring me this great pleasure and exquisite satisfaction—I am seriously more obliged for this than for anything that could have been done for me. I have got the one thing I wanted with all my heart. If both or either of us die tomorrow, at least to-day he has told me that my presence here has made him happy; he said more than that—things for which of course I take no credit to myself but which are not the less pleasant to hear from such a man. There is not other man living from whom I should so much have prized any expression of acceptance or goodwill in return for my homage; for all other men as great are so much younger that in his case one sort of reverence serves as the lining for another. My grandfather was upon the whole mieux consent; but he had written no Hellenics. In answer to something that Mr. Landor said to-day of his own age I reminded him of his equals and precursors, Sophocles and Titian; he said he should not live up to the age of Sophocles—not see ninety. I don't see why he should not, if he has people about him to care for him as he should be cared for. I should like to throw up all other things on earth and devote myself to playing valet to him for the rest of his days. I should black his boots if he wore any—moi. He has given me the shock of adoration which one feels at thirteen towards great men. I am not sure that any other emotion is so durable and persistently delicious as that of worship, when your god is indubitable and incarnate before your eyes.3 I told him, as we were talking of poems and such things, that his poems had first given me inexplicable pleasure and a sort of blind relief when I was a small fellow of twelve at Eton much beaten upon and worried some twelve years back (or nearly) now. My first recollection of them is the Song of the Hours in the Iphigenia.4 Apart from their executive perfection, all those Greek poems of his always fitted on to my own way of feeling and thought infinitely more than even Tennyson's modern versions: and now I am more than ever sure that the 'Hamadryad'4 is a purer and better piece of work, from the highest point of view that art can take, than such magnificent hashes and stews of old and new with a sharp sauce of personality as 'Oenone' and 'Ulysses.' Not that I am disloyal to Tennyson, into whose church we were all in my time born and baptized as far back as we can remember at all; but he is not a Greek nor a heathen; and I imagine does not want to be; and I greatly fear believes it possible to be something better: an absurdity which should be left to the Brownings and other blatant creatures begotten on the slime of the modern chaos. 55. To Lord Houghton, 31 March [1864] Letters. 1:96-98 📄 A letter… I have read all Browning's new book [Dramatis Personae] since we parted; and while quite holding to all I said and say about his work as a poet I must also say—I have even had the candour to say to Rossetti—that I fully recognize the unique and most admirable power of Sludge and Caliban. I want to send you my full acknowledgment of this: because we talked enough about the matter, and because I have really derived such rare and keen pleasure, in the teeth of all personal or artistic feelings of dislike, from these two poems (if poems they are to be called) that I don't want you to suppose me insensible to their delightful qualities. I class both these above Blougram—not as intellectual exercises, but as samples of good work done. They are as good as Swift—i.e. not so good here, and better there; incomparably above Thackeray—and I think only a little below Chamfort and Stendhal. This last with me is higher praise than all the rest. Not less noble is the opening of St. John—but long before the end the poem is swamped in controversial shallows, and the finer features effaced under a mask of indurate theological mud. In all the rest of the book I see much that is clever and nothing that is good—much that is ingenious and nothing that is right. 57. To John Nichol, 19 June [1864] Letters. 1:100 1864-03Visits Landor in Italy. Mary Gordon's EngagmentSwinburne's beloved cousin, Mary Gordon, announces her engagement to Colonel Disney Leith. They marry in June, 1865 The Children of the Chapel. Elected to the Arts ClubSwinburne is elected to the London gentlemen's club for those involved with the arts.	Hugo: William Shakespeare. Newman: Apologia pro Vita Sua. Spencer: Principles of Biology. 1864-09-17Landor dies.	Whistler: Symphony in White No. 2: The Little White Girl. Whistler: Symphony in White No. 2: The Little White Girl. Swinburne wrote the poem Before the Mirror (1866) for Whistler's painting. Gilbert Scott's Albert Memorial. Rossetti : Beata Beatrix.
1865	📄 A letter… My dear Ruskin I send you the song you asked for, finding that I can remember it after dinner. Nevertheless it has given me far more labour to recollect and transcribe than it did originally to compose. But your selection of it as a piece of work more satisfactory than usual gave me so much pleasure that I was determined to send it when I could. Since writing the verses (which were literally improvised and taken down on paper one Sunday morning after breakfast) I have been told more than once, and especially by Gabriel Rossetti, that they were better than the subject. Three or four days ago I had the good fortune to be able to look well over the picture which alone put them into my head, and came to the conclusion which I had drawn at first, that whatever merit my song may have, it is not so complete in beauty, in tenderness and significance, in exquisite execution and delicate strength as Whistler's picture. Whistler himself was the first critic who so far overpraised my verse as to rank it above his own painting. I stood up against him for himself, and will, of course, against all others. 83. To John Ruskin, 11 August [1865] Letters. 1:130 Atalanta in Calydon. Chastelard. HolmwoodSwinburne's family moves from East Dene on the Isle of Wight to Holmwood in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. Friendship with George Powell.	Carrol: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Dickens: Our Mutual Friend. Arnold: Essays in Criticism. Hugo: Les Chansons des rues et des bois. Ruskin: Sesame and Lilies. The Cestus of Aglaia.	Slavery formally abolished in the USA. First Women's Suffrage Committee formed in Manchester. Madox Brown completes Work.
1866	Poems and Ballads. 1866-08-04First reviews of Poems and Ballads appear. 1866-08-05Moxon withdraws Poems and Ballads Moxon decides he will no longer publish Poems and Ballads, and Swinburne agrees to publish with John Camden Hotton Advice from Lord LyttonVisits his friend Lord Lytton at Kenbworth. Receives advice on the firestorm surrounding Poems and Ballads. Notes on Poems and Reviews, Swinburne writes Notes on Poems and Reviews as a response to his critics. Visit to motherMuch of September and early October. Stays with mother, who is ill. Visit to Powell Stays with Powell at Aberystwyth. 1866-11William Michael Rossetti publishes Swinburne's Poems and Ballads. Visit to Holmwood Goes to Holmwood with family; stays until new year. 1866-05Lady Trevelyan dies.	Hugo. Les Travailleurs de la Mer. Ruskin: The Ethics of the Dust. The Crown of Wild Olives.
1867	Meets Mazzini Affair with Adah MenkenHas a short relationship with poet and actress, Adah Menken. The relationship lasts about six months. Composes Baudelaire ode, Ave Atque Vale. 1867-07Stay at Étreat with George Powell.	Bargehot: The English Constitution. Hugo. La voix de Guernsey . Marx: Das Kapital. Morris: The Life and Death of Jason Ruskin: Time and Tide.	Second Reform Act passedDisraeli's Conservative government passes the act that gives more voting rights to working class males. The act was meant to aid the Consertive Party by slightly redistributing seats in Parliament Fenian agitation. The Battle of Mentana1867-11-03Garibaldi's forces, attempting to capture Rome, are defeated at Mentana by the Papal Army and French forces.
1868	William Blake: A Critical Essay. Siena. 1868-07Nearly drowns at Étreat.	Morris: The Earthly Paradise. Baudelaire: Curiosités esthétiques. L'Art Romantique.	Gladstone Prime Minister (to 1874). Completion of St Pancras Station, designed by Scott. First Annual Trades Union Congress held in Manchester. Construction Begins On G. E. Street's Law Courts The building is one of the last major buildings in the Gothic revivalist style. Construction ends in 1882.
1869	1869-07Stay at Vichy with Richard Burton.	Arnold: Culture and Anarchy Hugo. L'Homme qui rit. Mill: The Subjection of Women. Trollope: He Knew He Was Right. Phineas Finn. Browning: The Ring and the Book. Ruskin: The Queen of the Air.	The Royal Academy established in Burlington House. Suez Canal opened. Disestablishment of Irish church. Emily Davies founds Girton College for women.
1870	Ode on the Proclamation of the French Republic.	D. G. Rossetti: Poems. Ruskin: Lectures on Art.	Franco-Prussian War. Married Women's Property Act. Changes in English Civil Service Civil Service in England thrown open to competitive examination. Elementary Education Act Passed The Act required that children of England and Walers remain in school until the age of 12. The law also recognized that basic schooling is a government responsibility. Millais : The Boyhood of Raleigh. Inchbold : Early Spring.
1871	Songs before Sunrise. Recovery at HolmwoodSwinburne is removed to Holmwood by his father to recover from severe illness due to alcoholism. 1871-01Meets Edmund Gosse. 1871-09Stay in Scotland with Jowett.	Darwin: The Descent of Man. Carroll: Through the Looking Glass.	Fall of Paris. Paris Commune. Bismarck Chancellor of German Empire. Trades Union Act PassedThe new laws strengthens legal status of unions. Meeting of Stanley and Livingtone in Ujiji. Slade School of Fine Art establishedSlade School of Fine Art established at University College, London.
1872	Under the Microscope Swinburne publishes Under the Microscope, a reply to Robert Buchanan's The Fleshly School of Poetry (1871), an attack on the Pre-Raphaelite poets, Rossetti, Swinburne, and Morris. Relationship ends with DG RossettiThe relationship between Rossetti and Swinburne ends due to Rossetti's illness. 1872-10Meets Theodore WattsSwinburne meets Watts (later Watts-Dunton), who becomes Swinburne's close friend and trusted advisor.	Eliot: Middlemarch. Butler: Erewhon. Forster: Dickens. Hugo. L'Année terrible. Ruskin: Aratra Penteleci. The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret. The Eagle's Nest.	Secret ballot for Parliamentary elections imposed by law. Mazzini dies.
1873	John Camden Hotten dies. Swinburne's publisher John Cadmen Hotten dies, freeing Swinburne to pursue another publishing deal.	Mill: Autobiography. Pater: Studies in the History of the Renaissance. Ruskin: Lover's Meinie. Ariadne's Fiorentina.	First typewriter. Depression in BritainOnset of great agricultural and financial depression in Britain.
1874	Chatto & Windus Swinburen reaches new publishing arrangement with Andrew Chatto. Bothwell.	Sidgwick: The Methods of Ethics. Hugo. Quatrevingt-treize. Hugo. Mes Fils. Mill: Three Essays on Religion.	Disraeli Prime Minister (to 1880). Impressionists' first exhibition in Paris. Burne Jones : The Beguiling of Merlin.
1875	Songs of Two Nations. Essays and Studies. George Chapman: A Critical Essay. 1875-07Composes Erechtheus in Suffolk.	Hugo. Actes et paroles — Avant l'exil. Hugo. Actes et paroles — Pendant l'exil. Trollope: The Way We Live Now. Symonds: The Renaissance in Italy.	Gilbert and Sullivan's first successful collaboration, on Trial by Jury. Norman Shaw's designs for Bedford ParkNorman Shaw's designs for Bedford Park, London's first garden suburb. Creation of Sanitary Authorities Public Health Act creates a Sanitary Authority in every area. Peaceful picketing recognized as legal.
1876	Erechtheus.Publishes Erechtheus, the second of Swinburne's two lyrical dramas based on Greek myth and modeled on Greek tragedy. Controversy with Shakespeare Society.1876-01 Letter to Athenaeum attacking Furnivall of the Shakespeare Society. Buchanan sues Swinburne. Swinburne in court because of Buchanan's suite over the publication of Swinburn'es Epitaph on a Slanderer and The Devil's Due. The court rules in Buchanan's favor. Note of an English Republican on the Muscovite Crusade. 1876-05Visit to Channel Islands with Nichol.	F.H. Bradley: Ethical Studies. Eliot: Daniel Deronda. Hugo: Actes et paroles — Depuis l'exil. Morris: The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs.	Victoria Empress of India. Bulgarian AtrocitiesMassacre of Christians by Moslems in Siberia. Bell patents the telephone.
1877	1877-03Swinburne's father dies in March. A Note on Charlotte Brontë. A Year's LettersPublishes A Year's Letters Letters (later known as Love's Cross-Currents) in serial form.	Hugo: a Légende des Siècles 2e série. Hugo: L'Art d'être grand-père. Hugo: Histoire d'un crime 1re partie. Mallock: The New Republic.	Manchester Town Hall BuiltAlfred Waterhouse builds Manchester town hall, with 12 frescoes by Madox Brown (to 1893). Grosvenor Gallery OpensComyns Carr opens the Grosvenor Gallery for the display of modern art. Whistler : Nocturne in Black and Gold. Morris founds Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Edison invents phonograph.
1878	Poems and Ballads, Second Series. 1878-01Stay at Glasgow with Nichol.	Hardy: The Return of the Native. Hugo. Histoire d'un crime 2e partie. Hugo. Le Pape. James: Daisy Miller.	Congress of Berlin. Lord Leighton becomes President of the Royal Academy. William Booth founds Salvation Army. Rossetti completes The Blessed Damozel.
1879	📄 A letter… I shall probably have three books coming out this winter on each other's heels: my Study of Shakespeare, this triad of sea-studies (for which I want a generic title: I had thought of Epithalassion, forming the word after the types of the Latin Epithalamium & the Shelleyan Epipsychidion; I still think it rather pretty and apt; … do you think it would do? or would it be held affected & pedantic?) & thirdly, under the very closest & darkest petalled of roses (for the present at least) a little book of parodies or burlesques, whereof you know some. One on myself, & one on Tennyson, both just written, are, I do think models. But pray keep this a dead secret. 978F. To: William Michael Rossetti, 15 November [1879]. Uncollected Letters. 2:182 Near Death ExperienceNear death from alcohol abuse, Swinburne is taken from his London rooms by friend Theodore Watts (later Watts-Dunton). Swinburne lives with Watts at "The Pines" in Putney for the rest of his life. Watts helps Swinburne recover from his problem with alcohol, and Swinburne henceforth lives a much quieter life.	Hugo. La pitié suprême. Meredith: The Egoist. Stevenson: Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. Balfour: A Defence of Philosophic Doubt.	Zulu war. First electric street lighting in London.
1880	A Study of Shakespeare. Songs of the Springtides. Studies in Song. The Heptalogia, or The Seven Against Sense.	Burton. The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi. Hugo. Religions et religion. Hugo. L'Âne. Ruskin: Fiction, Fair and Foul.	Gladstone again Prime Minister (to 1885). Burne Jones : The Golden Stairs.
1881	Mary Stuart.	Carlyle: Reminiscences. Hugo: Les Quatres vents de l'esprit. James: The Portrait of a Lady. D.G. Rossetti: Ballads and Sonnets.	Revision to New TestamentRevised Version of New Testament published (Old Testament 1885). British troops defeated by Boers at Mujaba. Natural History Museum opens to publicNatural History Museum, South Kensington (designed by Waterhouse) opens to public.
1882	Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems. Visits Hugo1872-11Swinburne and Watts visit Victor Hugo in Paris.	Dictionary of National Biography. Besant: All Sorts and Conditions of Men. Hugo: Torquemada . 1882-04-09Dante Gabriel Rossetti dies.	Phoenix Park murders. Britain occupies Egypt and Sudan. Second Married Women's Property Act.
1883	A Century of Roundels. 1883-07At Cromer with Watts.	Hugo: La Légende des siècles Tome III. Hugo: L'Archipel de la Manche . Trollope: Autobiography. Ruskin: The Art of England.	Irish terrorist bombings in London. Royal College of Music foundedRoyal College of Music founded, with Stanford and Parry as professors.
1884	A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems. 1884-07With Watts in Norfolk.	Oxford English Dictionary. Spencer: Man versus the State. Ruskin: The Pleasures of England.	Society of Authors founded. Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes set up. Further Reform Acts More Reform Acts in 1884 and 1885 extend franchise and redistribute seats in favour of large towns.
1885	Marino Faliero, a blank-verse drama. 1885-08-11Lord Houghton dies.	Burton,trans. The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night . Pater: Marius the Epicurean. Pattison: Memoirs.	Death of General Gordon at Khartoum. Salisbury leads Conservative government (to 1886). Pasteur produces a successful anti-rabies vaccine.
1886	Miscellanies. A Study of Victor Hugo.	Stevenson: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Kidnapped.	Gladstone briefly Prime Minister again Glandstone briefly is made Prime Minister again, but is defeated over Irish Home Rule. Salisbury resumes office (to 1892). Foundation of New English Art ClubSickert, Whistler, and Wilson Steer create the club to challenge conventionalism of Royal Academy. Millais : Bubbles. Daimler patents high-speed internal combustion engine.
1887	Locrine, a lyrical drama. Whitmania. 1887-07At Lancing with Watts.	Rutherford: The Revolution in Tanner's Lane.	Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. First Colonial Conference in London. 'Bloody Sunday'Violent clashes between police and Irish and radical demonstrators occur in Trafalger Square.
1888	1888-10Again at Lancing with Watts. Mr. Whistler's Lecture on ArtAttacks Whistler in an article Mr. Whistler's Lecture on Art.	Mrs Humphry Ward: Robert Elsmere. Morris: A Dream of John Ball. Doughty: Travels in Arabia Deserta. Kipling: Plain Tales from the Hills.	County Councils established nationwide. First exhibition of Arts and Crafts Guild. Dunlop patents pneumatic tyre.
1889	A Study of Ben Jonson. Poems and Ballads, Third Series.	Pater: Appreciations: with an Essay on Style. Patmore: Principles in Art. Huxley: Agnosticism. Fabian Essays in Socialism. Yeats: The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems.	London dock strike. National Telephone Company established. First Kodak camera using roll film manufactured.
1890	1890-10-20Sir Richard Francis Burton dies. 1890-11-22William Bell Scott dies.	Frazer: The Golden Bough. Morris: News from Nowhere. Gissing: The Emancipated.	Morris founds the Kelmscott Press. Construction of Forth Bridge completed.
1891		Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray. Gissing: New Grub Street.	Assisted Education Act PassedThe act establishes free elementary schooling in England.
1892	The Sisters, a blank verse drama with a contemporary setting. General Disney Leith dies.
1893	Mary Disney Leith's VisitSwinburne is visited by his beloved cousin, Mary Disney Leith, who begins corrspending with Swinburne again.
1894	Astrophel and Other Poems. Studies in Prose and Poetry.
1895		Wells: The Time Machine. Hardy: Jude the Obscure.
1896	The Tale of Balen. Swinburne's mother, Lady Jane Swinburne, dies. 1896-10-03William Morris dies.
1897			National Gallery for British Art (Tate Gallery) founded.
1898
1899	Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards, a blank-verse drama.		Boer War (to 1892). Ruskin College, Oxford, foundedThe college is meant to provide higher education for working men and women.
1900		Shaw: Three Plays for Puritans. Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams. Conrad: Lord Jim.	British Labour Party founded. Planck elaborates quantum theory. First Zeppelin built. German Navy Law PassedThe law provides doubling the number of battleships.
1901		Kipling. Kim.	Death of Queen Victoria.
1902		Times Literary Supplement first published. Conan Doyle. The Hound of the Baskervilles. Conrad.Heart of Darkness. Kipling. Just So Stories.	1902-08-09Coronation of Edward VII
1903	1903-11First Attack of Pneumonia.	Butler. The Way of All Flesh.
1904	A Channel Passage and Other Poems. The Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne, six volumes of Swinburne's collected poems.	Conrad. Nostromo.
1905	Love's Cross-CurrentsLove's Cross-Currents, a novel first published in 1877 as A Year's Letters under the pseudonym Mrs. Horace Manners. Watts-Dunton Marries Watts, now Watts-Dunton, marries his secretary, Miss Clara Reich. The Tragedies of Algernon Charles Swinburne, five volumes of Swinburne's collected dramas.	Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Forster. Where Angels Fear to Tread.
1906	Refuses Honorary Degree from Oxford		1906-12-15Opening of the London Underground Piccadilly line.
1907		1907-01-26Synge. The Playboy of the Western World. First performance at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin triggers a week of rioting Gosse. Father and Son.
1908	The Duke of Gandia, an unfinished blank-verse drama. The Age of Shakespeare.	Forster. A Room with a View.
1909	Three Plays of Shakespeare. Swinburne diesOn April 10, Swinburne dies of pneumonia at the age of seventy-three. April 15, Swinburne buried at Bonchurch, Isle of Wight.		1909-06-26Victoria and Albert Museum opens

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Algernon C. Swinburne

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Chronology

Praeterita

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Maxwell, Catherine Biographical Outline

Swinburne

Tavistock Northcote 2006 ix-xii

A. C. Swinburne: A Poet's Life 74725 Rooksby, Rikky

Scolar Press Brookfield, VT 1997

The Swinburne Letters

Cecil Y. Lang

New Haven Yale UP

6 vols.

Uncollected Letters of Algernon Charles Swinburne 3757 Swinburne, Algernon Charles

Meyers, Terry L.

Pickering & Chatto London 2005

3 vols.