Chatterton - A Biography: With a Biography by George Gregory Smith

by David Masson, George Gregory Smith (Other)

Overview

In 1763, an 11-year-old boy named Thomas Chatterton began publishing mature works of poetry. Before long, he was fooling the literary world by passing his work off as that of a non-existent 15th-century poet named Thomas Rowley-which he did until unmasked by Horace Walpole. Brought up in poverty and without a father, he studied furiously and went on to try and earn a living from his writing. After impressing the likes of the Lord Mayor, William Beckford and the radical leader John Wilkes, he eagerly looked for an outlet in London for his political works, but was unable to make a decent living and, despairing, poisoned himself at the age of seventeen. Chatterton had a significant impact on Romantic artists including Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats; with numerous notable poems, plays, and paintings having been dedicated to him since his untimely death. Originally published in 1857, this book contains a detailed biography of Chatterton written by David Masson. Prof David Mather Masson (1822-1907) was a Scottish historian, literary critic historian, and academic who vocally supported women's suffrage. His most famous work is his magnum opus "Life of Milton in Connexion with the History of His Own Time" (1858-1880). Other notable works by this author include: "British Novelists and their Styles" (1859), "Drummond of Hawthornden" (1873), and "Edinburgh Sketches" (1892). Read & Co. is republishing this classic biography in a new edition complete with a biography by George Gregory Smith.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781409794790
Publisher:	Read & Co. Books
Publication date:	07/01/2008
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.74(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER III BOUND FOR LONDON CAST out of all chance of a livelihood in his native town, there was but one course open to Chatterton : to bid farewell to Bristol and attorneyship, and try what he could do in the great literary mart of London. Sanguine as were his hopes of success, it can have cost him but little thought to make up his mind to this course, if indeed he did not secretly congratulate himself that his recent escapade had ended so agreeably. Probably there was but one thing that stood in the way of an immediate declaration by himself, after the fracas was over, that this was the resolution he had come tothe want, namely, of a little money to serve for outfit. No sooner, therefore, was this obstacle removed by the charitable determination of his friends, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Clayfield, the Catcotts, etc., to make a little subscription for him, so as to present him with the parting gift of a few pounds, than the tide offeeling was turned, and from a state of despondency Chatterton gave way to raptures of unbounded joy. London! London! A few days, and he should have left the dingy quays of abominable Bristol, and should be treading, in the very footsteps of Goldsmith, Garrick, and Johnson, the liberal London streets! Chatterton remained exactly a week in Bristol after his dismissal from Mr. Lambert's: i.e. from the 16th to the 24th of April. A busy week we may suppose that to have been for Mrs. Chatterton and her daughter; so much sewing to be done, so many other little preparations to be made for the poor boy's departure. This dreadful occurrence notwithstanding, and all that idle people are saying about it, do not they know him better than anybody else does, and mayhe not yet, they say to each other, make his way in the world as creditably as any of the best in Bris...