Dyer, George

(1755-1841)

   Born in London, he was educated at Christ's Hospital from 1762 to 1774 and was for a long time at the head of school. He graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1778, then worked at two schools and returned to Cambridge, where he was tutor in the family of Robert Robinson, a minister of a dissenting congregation. In 1792 he went to London, where he made friends with Charles Lamb, and was employed in such literary tasks as making indexes and correcting the press. Dyer became totally blind; he died in London. In addition to his poetry, which included many odes, he published works on various social issues. Some of his poetry: Poems, Consisting of Odes and Elegies, 1792. The Poet's Fate, a Poetical Dialogue, 1797. Poems, 1801. Poems and Critical Essays, 1802. Poetics, or a Series of Poems and Disquisitions on Poetry, 1812. Some of his poems: "In Deep Distress, I Cried to God," "On Taking Leave of Arthur Aikin," "On Visiting the Tomb of David Hume," "Poetic Sympathies," "The Poet's Fate," "The Redress," "To Gilbert Wakefield."

   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). Poems, by George Dyer. Longman and Rees, 1801. Romanticism. Duncan Wu, ed. Blackwell, 1994. 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 National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.