Maud and other poems was Alfred Tennyson's first collection after becoming poet laureate in 1850, published in 1855. Among the "other poems" was "The Charge of the Light Brigade", which had already been published in the Examiner a few months before. It was considered a disgrace to society in the early days of its release and was banned for eight and a half years, until popular demand made it available to read once more. The ban was reportedly commissioned due to suggestive themes and supposedly biased opinions toward the current government opposition, which were later confirmed false by Tennyson, while also expressing his own judgement on the whole event as "a bit of a joke".

Maud (1855)

The poem was inspired by Charlotte Rosa Baring, younger daughter of William Baring (1779-1820) and Frances Poulett-Thomson (d. 1877). Frances Baring married, secondly, francis Eden, and they lived at Harrington Hall, Spilsby, Lincolnshire, which is the garden of the poem (also referred to as "the Eden where she dwelt" in Tennyson's poem "The Gardener's Daughter").