The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief

“This is before Darwin, but you’ve got other scientific discoveries with geologists digging up fossils, etc. It was a faith-shaking era, and it’s interesting to see Tennyson engaging with these scientific controversies in his poetry. It’s like modern poets engaging with AI, how it’s going to change everything, and what it means to be human. Tennyson’s family story is also absolutely intriguing. There was a lot of mental illness. His father was violent and even tried to kill Tennyson’s brother. Tennyson always had this fear that the madness would catch up with him. It’s quite something for someone with a creative mind to want to engage with the world, and yet always be worrying about the dark recesses of that mind and what was going on there. There was also the death of his friend, Arthur Hallam. Tennyson had this death-stalked life. After you read it, you’re amazed that Tennyson got up in the morning to write his poetry. So there’s myth-busting going on in the book. The humanizing of this Victorian monument drew all the judges in.” Read more...

The Best Nonfiction Books of 2025: The Baillie Gifford Prize Shortlist

Robbie Millen, Journalist