The wind is whipping around me as I write this at Farringford, the home of Alfred Lord Tennyson on the Isle of Wight. Being here brings Tennyson's poetry alive for me in a new way. It had a similar impact on Mary Gladstone, the thirty-one-year-old daughter of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. She visited the poet and his family in 1879, and walked the downs with Tennyson while he recited his poetry. Despite being used to socializing with celebrated men and women of her day, Mary still felt nervous exhilaration at staying with Britain’s Poet Laureate. She wrote in detail about this noteworthy event, including the layout of Farringford and its garden. Such descriptions inform us about the lives of Mary Gladstone and the Tennysons, situate Tennyson's poetry in the landscape that he loved, and contextualize Farringford itself, which will open to the public as a museum in 2017.
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