Warren, John Byrne Leicester, 3rd Baron De Tabley

(1835-1895)

   Born at Tabley House, Cheshire, educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford, he tried the diplomatic service, law, and was an officer of the Cheshire yeomanry, but his heart seemed elsewhere. He wrote two tragedies: Philoctetes (1866) and Orestes (1868), which were moderately successful, however, not one copy of The Soldier's Fortune (1876) was sold. He was greatly encouraged when in 1891 Poets of the Century, by A.H. Miles, was published, which contained some of his poems. He never married and he succeeded to the title four years before he died and was buried at Little Peover, Cheshire. His Flora of Cheshire was published posthumously in 1899. He published poetry under his own name and also as George Preston and William Lancaster. Some of his publications: Ballads and Metrical Sketches, 1860. Praeterita, 1863. Studies in Verse, 1865. Rehearsals, 1870. Searching the Net, 1873. Poems, Dramatic and Lyrical, 1893. Some of his poems: "All-Hallow-E'en," "Anticipation," "Semele," "The Churchyard on the Sands," "The Minstrel," "The Study of a Spider," "The Wreck of a Life."

   Sources: Come Hither. Walter de la Mare, ed. Knopf, 1957; Dover Publications, 1995. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Love Poems. John Betjeman and Geoffrey Taylor, eds. Faber and Faber, 1957. English Lyric Poems, 1500-1900. C. Day Lewis, ed. Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1961. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Victorian Verse. George MacBeth, ed. Penguin Books, 1986.