Richard Realf

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.

After arriving in the U.S., Realf explored the slums of New York City, became a Five Points Missionary, and assisted in establishing there a course of cheap lectures and a self-improvement association. In 1856 he accompanied a party of free-state emigrants to Kansas, where he became a journalist and correspondent of several eastern newspapers. He made the acquaintance of John Brown, accompanied him to Canada, and was to be secretary of state in the provisional government that Brown projected. The movement being deferred for two years, Realf made a visit to England and a tour in the southern states. When Brown made his attempt at Harpers Ferry in October 1859, he was in Texas, where he was arrested and sent to Washington, D.C., being in imminent danger of lynching on the way.

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