Scotland 1700-1725; London and "Winter" 1725-1726; a rising poet - "Summer", "Newton", "Spring", "Britannia" 1726-1729; recognition - "Sophonisba" and "The Seasons" 1730; the grand tour and the establishment 1730-1733; the poet of "Liberty" 1734-1736; His Highness' man at Kew - "Talbot" and "Agamemnon" 1737-1738; censored - "Edward and Eleonora" and "Alfred" 1738-1742; courtship - revised "Seasons" and "Tancred and Sigismunda" 1742-1745; last years - "The Castle of Indolence" and "Coriolanus" 1746-1748. Appendix: Portraits of Thomson.
The first full-scale biography in 40 years
`meticulous editor ... Sambrook has assembled all the essentials on
James Thomson, and it would need a lot more inessentials to take us
any further into the man.'
Pat Rogers, Times Literary Supplement
`a work of distinguished scholarship'
Chloe Chard, Financial Times
`James Sambrook, who has already produced a magnificent edition of
Thomson's poetry, has now given us this excellent, judicious and
perceptive biography.'
David Nokes, The Spectator,
'James Sambrook ... has written what must now be regarded as the
definitive biography of Thomson. It is stunning in its meticulous
detail and clarity. It produces a level of scholarship and research
utterly thorough and rarely seen now or at any time. The biography
excellently weaves together, in discriminating fashion, original
sources and documents. One has confidence that what could have been
unearthed has been. This is an excellent biography not only
for Thomson scholars and readers, but for students and readers of
18th-c. English literature in general.'
James Engell, Archiv, 1992
'Professor Sambrook's delightful; Life of Thomson will be
justifiably recognized as the standard modern biography of the man
best known as the poet of The Seasons. In the course of ten
enlightening chapters Sambrook exhaustively but sympathetically
treats the pertinent literary, political and personal dimensions of
his subject's life. The even balance the author maintains between
literary criticism, history and biography will be greatly
appreciated by readers from a variety of disciplines. This Life is
a valuable addition to Sambrook's other considerable contributions
to Thomsonian studies.'
George Tresidder, Goldsmiths' College, London, British Journal for
Eighteenth-Century Studies
'... although the new Life demonstrates Sambrook's unparalleled
knowledge of the texts, it is his emphasis on Thomson as a poet of
politics, rather thatn nature, that distinguishes it from earlier
studies. What emerges with great clarity is the intricate nature of
the relationship between poet and patron, ... a masterpiece of
unspeculative, unsensationalized research.'
Fiona Stafford. Somerville College, Oxford. review of English
Studies Vol XLV May '94
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