To His Coy Mistress To His Coy Mistress "To His Coy Mistress" is a metaphysical poem written by the English author and politician Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) either during or just before the English Interregnum (1649–60). It was published posthumously in 1681. This poem is considered one of Marvell's finest and is possibly the best recognized carpe diem poem in English. Although the date of its composition is not known, it may have been written in the early 1650s. At that time, Marvell was serving as a tutor to the daughter of the retired commander of the New Model Army, Sir Thomas Fairfax. The speaker
Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets literary biography, the "Life of Mr Richard Savage", in honour of a friend who had died the year before. Various accounts are given of how Johnson came to write his "Lives of the Poets" during an episode of anti-Scottish sentiment in England. As related in the preface to the 1891 edition of the Lives, Scottish publishers had started to produce editions of the collected works of various English poets and sell them in London, which was considered an invasion of copyright precedent. Then in 1777 the publisher John Bell proposed to bring out a 109-volume set of "The Poets of