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Biographies & Works of
Thomas Chatterton
The Bristol Boy Bandying Parts
With Shakespeare!
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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 Pile Street 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, 9 months & 13 days: 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 Brooke Street, Holborn, London (privacy at last), lodging in the attic room in which he died, in the house of Mrs Angel, a Sacque Maker. The End!
A short life indeed!
But as short as it was
He still got his wish to
Have his name blown about the world.
His fame reached many countries
& stretched across the centuries
Not bad for a poet who was
'But a boy!'
Biographies & Works
Discover how Chatterton was
Viewed through the Ages?
Click the titles to read the Biographies & Works
Thomas Chatterton
An Elegy on William Beckford
(1770) No link yet - QE! will upload own copy soon.
Thomas Chatterton
The Auction a Poem...
(1770) No link yet - Copy to come from Bristol Library.
Thomas Eagles (editor)
The Execution of Sir Charles Bawdin (1772) (no link yet)
John Broughton
Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1778) (no link yet)
Herbert Croft
Most 'facts' about Chatterton come from
The Wonderful Weirdness of Herbert Croft's books:
Jeremiah Milles, D.D.
T. Becket (printer)
William Barrett
George Gregory
The First Full biography is in
Biographia Britannica Vol 4. (1789).
(It starts with the phrase; 'Appendix to Letter C. No. 1, Vol 3,
page 450,' which is to follow if I can find it)
The First Separate Full biography (1789)
George Gregory
Lancelot Sharpe (editor)
Robert Anderson, editor
C. Roworth (editor)
The Revenge, A Burletta
(1795) (No link yet - QE! will upload own copy soon)
Edward Gardner
An Anecdote rather than a Biography.
Unlike the others he claims to have known Chatterton
For the three months before he left Bristol (1798).
Original Poems of the Late Unfortunate Thomas Chatterton (GoogleDocs)
No link yet - photos due from my own copy.
Southey, Cottle & Gregory
The Works of Thomas Chatterton in Three Volumes
Vol 1: His Life, by Gregory and Miscellaneous Poems;
Vol 2: The Poems Attributed to Rowley;
John Davis
One Small Volume
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)
Javelin Pagnon
Oeuvres complètes de Chatterton. précédées d'une Vie de Chatterton. Traduites par Javelin Pagnon ; par A. Callet... Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770). Auteur du texte.
​
[if I could read French I would be a dangerous man]
Chatterton's Works translated by Pagnon, with his life by A. Callet.
Charles B. Wilcox
The Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton
with Notices of his Life, History of the Rowley Controversy, a selection of his letters, and Notes Critical and Explanatory (1842) (Archive.org)
​
David Masson
Chatterton is in illustrious company in this book:
Shakespeare; Milton; Wordsworth.
The essay on Chatterton was published as a book in its own right in (1874), where Masson corrects a few errors. The edition is shown further down, date order.
S. R. Maitland
James R. Bennett
Daniel Wilson
Walter Skeat
Stanley Hutton
Bristol and its Famous Associations.
It has a chapter on Chatterton, which includes the first printing of photographs of Chatterton's 'Will.'
Also, the first published images of Burgum and Catcott.
​
Bristol and its Famous Associations (1907)
(Archive.org)
Charles Edward Russell
A Pulitzer Prize Winner for Biography
A Biography of Chatterton
Thomas Chatterton, The Marvelous Boy (1908)
(Archive.org)
John Ingram
A Biography of Chatterton
From one of the protagonists in
The Chatterton Family Bible Saga
(Archive.org)
Esther Parker Elinger
Thomas Chatterton The Marvelous Boy
To which is added The Exhibition A Personal Satire (1930)
(No link yet)
E. H. W. Meyerstein
The definitive Life of Chatterton is not available online to read as a printed book (unless you are a special person).
As an alternative, the link here is to Meyerstein's handwritten original/fair copy.
A Life of Thomas Chatterton (1930) (Google Docs)
Ernst Penzoldt
Basil Cottle
Linda Kelly
The Marvelous Boy. The Life and Myth of
Thomas Chatterton (1971)
​
I like this edition, even though the opening page of the Life has Chatterton's year of birth as 1753, and the later edition failed to correct this error. It actually put me off from reading the book. However, nearly twenty years on from first buying a copy, I finally put my picky, prickly attitude to one side and really enjoyed the book and found it informative.
Louise J. Kaplan
Impostor-Poet Thomas Chatterton (1988)
(.QE!.) More to do but currently leaning on my shovel!
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).
