Panel M3
Thomas Chatterton
Biographies
The Boy Bandying Parts with Shakespeare!
Chatterton's Short Life
Lasted from 1752 to 1770
A total of 17 years 9 months.
A Bald and stark statement
Of a tiny existence
- 17 years and 9 months-
Break it Down &
It Becomes Truly Stark:
5 years: As a Pre-School Child in Bristol.
1 month: As a Pupil at a Charity School
Expelled as too Dull to Learn
(5 or 6 years old)
2 years 7 months: Home Schooled by his mother, Sarah, & sister, Mary.
6 years 11 months: 'Imprisoned' as a pupil at Colston's Boarding School
2 years 10 months: As an unpaid Scrivener at Lambert's Solicitors.
37 days: In Shoreditch, London, sharing a bed with the son of his relative Mrs Ballance.
85 days: In Holborn, London, lodging in an attic room (privacy at last), in the house of Mrs Angel, a Sacque Maker. The End!
A short life indeed!
But, as short as his life was
His imaginative touch,
& sense of fun,
Reached many countries
& stretched across the centuries
Not bad for a poet who was
'But a boy!'
Herbert Croft
Most Chatterton 'facts' come from
The Wonderful Weirdness of Croft's
George Gregory
Biographia Britannica Vol 4
The First Full biography (1789)
(Starts with the phrase; 'Appendix to Letter C. No. 1, Vol 3,
page 450,' which is not available yet)
Edward Gardener
An Anecdote rather than a Biography.
Unlike the others he claims to have known Chatterton three months before he left Bristol (1798).
Original Poems of the Late Unfortunate Thomas Chatterton (GoogleDocs)
Not Ready Yet - photos due from my copy.
A Three Volume Set (M211)
Rowley's Works, Miscellanies Poems and Pieces, and Gregory's Life of Chatterton
John Dix
Three Editions by
The Controversial Biographer
The Life of Chatterton (1837) (Google Books)
Pen and Ink Sketches: (1845) (Archive.org)
The Life of Chatterton (1851) (Google Books)
David Masson
Chatterton: A Story of the Year 1770
In Essays Chiefly on English Poets
[In illustrious company; Shakespeare; Milton; Wordsworth]
Stanley Hutton
Bristol and its Famous Associations.
A section devoted to Chatterton.
Includes the first printing of photographs of Chatterton's 'Will.'
Also, the first published images of Burgum and Catcott.
(Archive.org)
A Pulitzer Prize Winner for Biography
A Biography of Chatterton
The True Life of Chatterton (1908)
(Archive.org)
John Ingram
A Biography of Chatterton
From one of the protagonists in
The Chatterton Family Bible Saga
Esther Parker Elinger
Thomas Chatterton The Marvelous Boy
To which is added The Exhibition A Personal Satire (1930)
Not Available Yet
(
Louise J. Kaplan
The Family Romance of the Impostor-Poet Thomas Chatterton (1988)
More to come
etc.
etc.
&c
Heads Up!
When searching a specific word
in an online volume
You will sometimes get
a negative result
Even though the word
is present!
The function finds it difficult
to recognise some words
Due to faded or foxed type,
Or when the long S is used
(see image below).
