T. A. Jackson

John Brown's Body is an American epic poem written by Stephen Vincent Benét in 1928. The poem's title references the radical abolitionist John Brown, who raided the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in October 1859. Benét's poem covers the history of the American Civil War. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1929. It was written while Benét was living in Paris after receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1926.

When Charles Dickens died in 1870, The Times of London successfully campaigned for his burial in Westminster Abbey, the final resting place of England's kings and heroes. Thousands flocked to mourn the best recognized and loved man of nineteenth-century England. His books had made them laugh, shown them the squalor and greed of English life, and also the power of personal virtue and the strength of ordinary people. In his last years Dickens drew adoring crowds, had met presidents and princes, and had amassed a fortune. Yet like his heroes, Dickens trod a hard path to greatness. His young life was overturned when his profligate father was sent to debtors' prison and Dickens was forced into harsh factory work--but this led to his remarkable eye for all that was absurd, tragic, and redemptive in London life. This biography gives full measure to Dickens's stature--his virtues both as a writer and as a human being--while observing his failings in both respects with an unblinking eye.--From publisher description.