The English poet, essayist, and critic Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) is best known for his "Imaginary Conversations," a series of dialogues between historical personages.

Walter Savage Landor was born on Jan. 30, 1775, the eldest son of Walter Landor, a doctor, and Elizabeth Savage Landor, an heiress whose fortune of £80,000 was entailed on her eldest son, though she had three more. Dr. Landor owned Hughenden Manor, later bought by Benjamin Disraeli. Walter Savage was sent away to school at 4 and at 9 went to Rugby School. He loved all nature: he did not pick flowers, pulled boys' ears for stoning rooks, never took a bird's nest, and never hunted. By 1789 he was writing bawdy verses and vociferously approving the French Revolution.

In 1793 Landor went to Trinity College, Oxford, where he was thought a "mad Jacobin" because he wore unpowdered hair. He was sent down in 1794 for shooting a fellow student and...