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Biography of Thomas ChattertonName: Thomas ChattertonBirth Date: November 20, 1752 Death Date: August 24, 1770 Place of Birth: Bristol, England Nationality: English Gender: Male Occupations: poet Thomas Chatterton The major works of the English poet Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) are a group of poems that he claimed had been written by Thomas Rowley, a 15th-century priest.Thomas Chatterton, born in Bristol on Nov. 20, 1752, was the posthumous son of a schoolmaster. In 1727 his father had acquired many 15th-century parchments, and in these documents Chatterton later pretended to find the poems and records of Thomas Rowley and his circle.In 1760 Chatterton was enrolled in Colston's Hospital School, a charity school restricted to teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, and the principles of the Church of England. The narrowness of this education was somewhat relieved by the influence of the junior master, Thomas Phillips, who encouraged the older boys to read history and poetry and to write. According to Chatterton's sister, "he was more cheerful after he began to write poetry," when he was about 10 years old. His first published verses appeared in Felix Farley's …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…claimed, and far less money than fame. On Aug. 24, 1770, alone in London, not having eaten for several days, Chatterton tore up his papers, drank arsenic, and died. Further Reading Joseph Cottle and Robert Southey, eds., The Works of Thomas Chatterton (3 vols., 1803), includes the earliest biography, the "Life of Chatterton" by George Gregory. The Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton (2 vols., 1871) was edited by Walter W. Skeat; it includes an essay on the Rowley poems by Skeat and a memoir by Edward Bell. New biographical material is in John H. Ingram, The True Chatterton (1910), and Sir Ernest Clarke, New Lights on Chatterton (1916). A more recent full-length study is John C. Nevill, Thomas Chatterton (1948).Dix, John Ross, The life of Thomas Chatterton including his unpublished poems and correspondence, London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1993.Ellinger, Esther Parker., Thomas Chatterton, the marvelous boy: to which is added The exhibition, a personal satire, Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1976. |