Calverley, Charles Stuart

(1831-1884)

   Calverley (born Blayds, who assumed the family name of Calverley from 1852) was a brilliant student at Harrow, Balliol College, Oxford, and Christ's College, Cambridge, although his pranks and disregard for discipline caused his dismissal from Oxford. He won the chancellor's prize for Latin verse at both universities, as well as several other prizes for both Latin and Greek. At Cambridge he won the Craven scholarship in 1854, the Camden medal in 1853 and 1855, the Browne medal (for a Greek ode) in 1855, and the members' prize for a Latin essay in 1856. He became a barrister, but owing to a skating accident, was prevented from a professional career. During the last years of his life he was an invalid, suffering from Bright's Disease (kidneys). His main publications: Verses and Translations, 1862. Translations, 1866. Fly Leaves, 1872. Theocritus, 1869. Some of his poems: "April: or, The New Hat," "Australia," "Charades," "In the Gloaming," "Lines Suggested by the Fourteenth of February," "Ode to Tobacco," "The Bottling of the Wasp," "The Cat," "The Cuckoo," "The Poet and the Fly."

   Sources: Charles Stuart Calverley, Martley's "Lost" Poet (http://www.martley.org.uk/people/lostpoet.htm). 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). Poemhunter (www. poemhunter.com). 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 Complete Works of C.S. Calverley. G. Bell and Sons, 1926. The Home Book of Verse. Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.