Palgrave, Francis Turner

(1824-1897)

   Born at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, he was educated at Charthouse School, London, graduated M.A. in classics from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1856, and was made fellow of Exeter College the same year. As an official of the education department from 1855 to 1884, he was involved in the training of elementary teachers. He wrote art reviews and critical essays dealing with art and literature for several newspapers. His anthology of poetry, Golden Treasury (1861), was an instant and long-lasting success. In 1878, he was made honorary doctor of laws of Edinburgh University, and in 1885 he was elected professor of poetry at Oxford. His last work before he died was Landscape in Poetry (1897). He lived for twenty years at Lyme Regis, and the Dorset countryside features in many of his poems. Some of his other publications: Shakespeare's Poems, 1865. Lyrical Poems, 1871. The Children's Treasury of English Song, 1875. Tennyson's Select Lyrics, 1885. Some of his poems: "A Dorset Idyl," "A Dorset Valley," "At Lyme Regis," "The Doom of Death," "The Linnet in November," "The Pilgrim and the Ploughman," "Trafalgar."

   Sources: Best Loved Story Poems. Walter E. Thwing, ed. Garden City, 1941. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Everyman's Book of Victorian Verse. J.R. Watson, ed. J.M. Dent, 1982. Palgrave: Selected Poems of Francis Turner Palgrave. Brian Louis Pearce, ed. Brentham Press, 1985. 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.