Jean Ingelow

Jean Ingelow (1820-1897) was an English poet, novelist, and children's writer whose work was widely read in the Victorian period. Her major works include Poems, Mopsa the Fairy, Off the Skelligs, and Stories Told to a Child. Jean Ingelow mattered because she combined domestic feeling, religious imagination, nature, childhood, and reflective lyricism in a style that appealed strongly to nineteenth-century readers in Britain and America. Though her reputation later declined, her poetry and children's writing were once popular and influential. She often wrote about hope, moral aspiration, memory, birthdays, and the sacred meaning of ordinary days. Her quotes endure because they connect the hunger for a great idea with the blessedness of life, and treat birthdays as occasions for thought rather than only celebration. Her verse still turns ordinary dates into occasions for moral attention.

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