Description

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. First published in 1899, this is Samuel Roffey Maitland’s detailed biographical account of Chatterton’s troubled life, misdirected genius, and tragic death. Samuel Roffey Maitland (1792–1866) was an English historian. A qualified Anglican priest, he wrote profusely on a variety of religious topics. Other notable works by this author include: “A Dissertation on the Primary Objects of Idolatrous Worship” (1817), “A Second Enquiry” (1829), and “Saint Bernard’s Holy War Translated” (1827). Read & Co. Books is republishing this classic essay now in a new edition complete with a biography by Augustus Jessopp.