Arthur Clough (1819-1861), one of the most undervalued of Victorian writers, is only now being recognized as a major poet. While an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, he wrote a series of intensely personal diaries that provide a candid view of his thoughts about the Victorian era, and that chart his development as a poet. In the letters, he discusses his Oxford education, the constant struggle between the liberal and the catholic view of Christianity which eventually led him to agnosticism, his interest in Newman's work at Oxford, and the influence of Thomas Arnold at Rugby. In lighter moments, the diaries paint a picture of a happier Clough, boating up the river and walking with Matthew Arnold through the countryside.
