Chatterton, Thomas

(1752-1770)

   Born in Bristol to a poor schoolmaster, he was considered a dull boy at school, but by the age of eight he was a pupil at Colston's Hospital, the bluecoat school at Bristol. He left the school at fifteen and was apprenticed to a Bristol attorney, but finding his position intolerable, with his master dismissive of him and his poetry, he went to London. Despair set in at his not being able to make a decent living. Half-starved, he ended his life with arsenic. His first poem, "On the Last Epiphany, or Christ coming to Judgment," was published in Felix Farley's Bristol Journal in 1763. Soon after that he paraphrased the ninth chapter of Job and several chapters of Isaiah. His poems were written in an imitation of medieval style and he invented an entire medieval setting to go with them. He even composed "historical" documents and made hundreds of drawings, including maps, to lend authenticity. Some of his other poems: "An African Song," "A Hymn for Christmas Day," "Minstrel's Song," "A New Song," "Chatterton's Will," "The Advice," "The Methodist."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Many of Chatterton's poems are at Oldpoetry (www.oldpoetry.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 London Book of English Verse. Herbert Read, and Barbara Dobree, ed. MacMillan, 1952. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1950. Helen Gardner, ed. Oxford University Press, 1972. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.