Martin Farquhar Tupper

Born in London in 1810, Martin Farquhar Tupper was an English poet and novelist who studied at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford. He was later called to the bar, but writing became the center of his public life.

His reputation was made by Proverbial Philosophy (1838), a collection of moral and reflective verse that found an enormous audience in Britain and North America. Contemporary readers embraced its earnest, quotable style, and for a time he was one of the best-known literary figures of the Victorian period.

Tupper's popularity did not last in the same way with later critics, and his work gradually slipped from favor, which makes his story especially interesting today. He died in 1889, remembered both as a major literary celebrity of his own century and as a vivid example of how public taste can change.