James Thomson, born about 11 September 1700 at Ednam in Roxburghshire and dead on 27 August 1748 at Richmond in Surrey, was among the most consequential poets of eighteenth-century Britain. A Scottish writer who made his career in London, he achieved a rare combination of popularity, literary innovation, and long afterlife. His great poem, The Seasons, led English readers away from the tightly controlled urban wit an…
“I know no subject more elevating, more amusing, more ready to awake the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of Nature.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Nature Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Spirituality
William Thom was born in Aberdeen, probably in December 1798, though sources have variously placed his birth in 1798, 1799, or 1800. The uncertainty is not trivial: it reflects the precarious position from which he emerged, a position in which the lives of poor urban families were not always recorded with the precision later granted to writers of standing. He came into the world in Sinclair’s Close, near the Justice…
“I always thought I could speak till now, but language fails me, and I can only say that I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Neighbourhood:
Romantic Poets, Scottish Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Longing, Wonder
