Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Born in 1840, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt was an English poet, diarist, and political writer whose life reached far beyond literary circles. He inherited Crabbet Park in Sussex, became known for his love of horses and Arabian breeding, and traveled widely in the Middle East and India.

Blunt is remembered not only for his poetry but also for his strong political views. He criticized British imperial policy, supported Egyptian and Irish causes, and was willing to make himself unpopular by speaking openly against the government. That independence gave his journals and essays much of their lasting interest.

He died in 1922. Today he is often valued as much for his diaries and political witness as for his verse, since they capture the contradictions of late Victorian and early 20th-century public life with unusual frankness.