Richard Realf Biography

Richard Realf (born 14 June 1832 in Framfield, East Sussex, England - died 28 October 1878 in Oakland, California) was a poet who lived in many places throughout the United States, and whose work was informed by these travels.

At the age of fifteen he began to write verses, and two years later he became amanuensis to a lady in Brighton. A traveling lecturer on phrenology recited some of young Realf's poems, as illustrations of ideality, and thereupon several literary people in Brighton sought him out and encouraged him. Under their patronage a collection of his poems was published, entitled "Guesses at the Beautiful" (London, 1852). Realf spent a year in Leicestershire, studying scientific agriculture, and in 1854 came to the United States.