In Memoriam
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Tennyson’s best friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, died in 1833 when Tennyson was 24. During the next 17 years, he wrote 135 verses dealing with his grief, loss and pain and thus published In Memoriam A.H.H. the most famous and popular poem of the Victorian age. Queen Victoria kept it by her bed to give her comfort through her long widowhood. The line”tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’ is one of the most recognised in the English language. The Tennyson Research Centre has the fullest manuscript of the poem.