30 April 2010

Coventry Patmore, 1984, and Percy Street, Fitzrovia: Literary London #6

This blue plaque remembers that the poet and essayist Coventry Patmore (1823-96) lived here - at 14 Percy Street - from 1863 to 1894, a stay perhaps so brief because of outside noise disturbing his concentration. Patmore is best known for his poem sequence The Angel in the House (1854-63).Now the Soho Wine Store at 18 Percy Street, this is where Sonia Brownwell, later to be George Orwell's second wife, lived in a flat in the 1940s. He modeled the place Winston and Julia used to share their secret meetings in 1984 on this place.

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