Profession: writer

Brentano’s lyrical poetry and story-telling encapsulated the spirit of second-generation German Romanticism. While still a (well-connected) student, he had met the Schlegels, Fichte, Tieck, Goethe, Wieland and Herder. Mendelssohn’s husband was a good friend. He worked closely with his lifelong friend Achim von Arnim (married to Brentano’s sister Bettina), the two gathering around them in Heidelberg a significant circle of likeminded writers: the Grimms (whose own story-collecting he stimulated), Eichendorff, Hoffmann and Görres. His final years were spent as literary amenuensis to a Catholic mystic.

Brontë was a great friend; they corresponded extensively, though only met in person a few times (her shyness once led her to hide behind Gaskell’s curtains rather than meet her visitors). Dickens, Stowe and Ruskin all also came to stay; Dickens helped her by publishing some of her stories in his magazine, though irritated her by wanting to give them happier endings. The Brownings and Carlyle corresponded. Darwin was a distant cousin (they met a few times), Nightingale a friend (Gaskell stayed with her to write without distraction). Gaskell’s Brontë biography is notable for being the first by a woman novelist, of a woman novelist.

Constable visited the extremely wealthy Beckford to study his painting collection (including works by Rembrandt, Titian, Raphael, Velazquez and Claude). Turner also visited, commissioned by Beckford. Beckford himself had been taught drawing as a child by Alexander Cozens, and met Voltaire on his first visit abroad. He became West’s patron, matching the king’s thousand-pound annuity. Beckford’s own story that as a young child he was taught music by Mozart (only 3 years older) is widely doubted. His best-known work, the gothic novel ‘Vathek’, written in French rather than English, has influenced French as much as English literature.

Wordsworth and Coleridge were Collins’ parents’ friends — he was aware when young of Coleridge’s opium habit, which foreshadowed his own spectacular consumption. Collins had many artist friends, including Landseer and Frith (with whom he visited Italy), and the pre-Raphaelites Millais and Hunt (Collins’ brother was involved with the group). His great literary mentor and friend was Dickens; he enthusiastically joined Dickens’ amateur dramatic group, wrote several Christmas stories with him, parodied his visitor Andersen, and accompanied him on numerous trips. Collins dedicated a novel to Procter, and loved America, where he met Twain, Longfellow and Holmes.

Peacock is often remembered primarily for his close friendship with Percy Shelley — at times, being an almost daily visitor — though they exerted little if any overt literary influence on one another. Peacock and James Mill were appointed at the same time to posts with the East India Company, Peacock being supervised by Mill before succeeding him in his position, a useful one for a writer (Mill’s son J. S. Mill in turn succeeded Peacock); the views of both Mills influenced his thought. Leigh Hunt effectively ‘inherited’ him as a friend from Shelley. Meredith married his daughter, and was influenced and helped by him.