Talfourd, Sir Thomas Noon

(1795-1854)

   Born at Reading, Berkshire, the son of a brewer, he was called to the bar in 1821 and became a judge in 1849. While he was member of Parliament for Reading, he introduced a copyright bill in 1837, but owing to the death of William IV in 1837, the bill took another seven years before it was passed. His tragedy Ion was produced at Covent Garden theatre in 1836, at Sadler's Wells Theatre in December 1861 and in America. Talfourd was a friend and executor of Charles Lamb and published his letters. The first part was in 1837 and the second in 1848; the two were brought together in 1892 as Talfourd's Memoirs of Charles Lamb. Charles Dickens dedicated Pickwick Papers (1837) to Talfourd, who died of a stroke while addressing the grand jury at Stafford. He was buried in Norwood cemetery, London. Some of his poems: "'Tis a Little Thing," "A Friend," "Hospitality," "Indian Tale," "Prologue to Cato," "On a Tear," "On the Education of the Poor," "On the Tomb of an Infant," "The Memory of the Poets," "The Westminster Play."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The National Portrait Gallery. (www.npg.org.uk). Poems that Touch the Heart. A.L. Alexander, ed. Doubleday, 1956. Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). Treasury of Favorite Poems. Joseph H. Head, ed. Gramercy Books, 2000.