Tennyson's death brought forth dozens of personal recollections and reminiscences by friends, family, and acquaintances. The month after his funeral, a reviewer for Blackwood's (November 1892) provided a review of his career, commenting that “minor voices chirp on” (748) but the country's greatest poetic voice has gone silent. The scholar Herbert Paul offered a more detailed retrospective for The New Review (November 1892), outlining the major events of Tennyson's life and commenting on his many achievements. The Nineteenth Century ran articles in December 1892 and January 1893, each titled “Aspects of Tennyson.” In the first, H. D. Traill celebrates Tennyson's accomplishments but warns prophetically that dissenting voices have already begun to cast doubt on his greatness. Traill, of course, believes that “considered as the artist” Tennyson's “rank in the corps [of great poets] is fixed, unchangeable” (953). In the second essay, Tennyson's personal friend James Knowles writes about his relationship with the poet, providing insight into his character.

Many of these early eulogists, like William Boyd Carpenter, the Bishop of Ripon, sought to elevate Tennyson's life and work as exemplary models for those wishing to better themselves (The Message and Meaning of Tennyson, 1893). In an 1893 essay in the Church Quarterly Review (reprinted in Modern Poets of Faith, Doubt, and Other Essays, 1904) Arthur Lyttleton, Bishop of Southampton, writes about the nation's loss, noting that “in an age of great ethical uncertainty” it was comforting to know that “the acknowledged leader of English literature should have consistently upheld a lofty ideal of purity” (3). Others, including Frederick Farrar, the Dean of Canterbury, simply recorded impressions of the poet’s life and summarized Tennyson’s comments on art and life (Men I Have Known, 1897).