Poet Laureate. Born Lincolnshire. Wrote 'Morte d'Arthur' (1859-85) about King Arthur and 'In Memoriam A. H. H.' (1850) a long elegy for his Cambridge friend and his sister Emily's fiancé, Arthur Henry Hallam, son of Henry Hallam. 'In Memoriam' contains: "red in tooth and claw" and "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
Tennyson became extremely popular and successful; a Victorian national treasure. But strange and not the cleanest person: when a friend suggested he should change his shirt, his response was ""Hm, yours would not be as clean as mine if you had worn it a fortnight." He also chose to sleep in the sheets in which his father had died. Turned down the offer of a baronetcy hoping for something better, and was rewarded with a peerage in 1883. Died at home at Aldworth House, near Haslemere.
