Author: CHATTERTON (Thomas):
Title: Miscellanies in Prose and Verse; by Thomas Chatterton, the supposed Author of the Poems published under the Names of Rowley, Canning, &c.
Description: London: Printed for Fielding and Walker..., 1778. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 212 x 127 mms., pp. [iv] v - xxxii, 245 [246 blank], including half-title, engraved plate of "Saxon Atchievements" at page 134 and engraved plate of Alderman Beckford's Statue opposite page 142, bound in 19th century quarter binder's cloth and marbled boards; lacks adverts leaf; with the inscription "Charles Hile [? Stile]/ 19/2/75" on the front paste-down end-paper. A good copy, though the binding is a bit unympathetic. "The archetypal nature of the myth of Chatterton's suicide is almost impossible to deny, and certainly impossible after over two centuries to disentangle from the circumstances of his life, but accidental poisoning remains the most plausible analysis of the scene. Stories abound: that Chatterton fell into a grave shortly before he died, that he ate oysters voraciously with Cross but proudly refused dinner with Mrs Angell, that he was refused a loaf on credit, and the coroner simply reported that he had 'swallowed arsenick in water, on the 24th of August, 1770; and died, in consequence thereof, the next day' (Meyerstein, 435). He had bought it from Cross to treat 'the Foul Disease', and it has since been forensically established (from a stain on his copybook; see Taylor, Chatterton's suicide) that he had access to laudanum—and Barrett said that the opium was picked out from between his teeth (Meyerstein, 441). The historical record has, however, been adulterated (for example by John Dix, who fabricated Chatterton's suicidal 'Last Verses' and a false inquest report; Meyerstein, 446–8), and profoundly embroidered by elegists, eulogists, poets, artists, and sculptors for more than two centuries" (Nick Groom in ONDB). Professor Groom's various works on Chatterton are exemplary, but they will probably not put to rest the enduring image of Chatterton as a romantic and gloomy nihilst. Donald S. Taylor, "The Authenticity of Chatterton's 'Miscellanies in Prose and Verse'" in Publications of the Bibliographical Society of Amereica, 1961.

Keywords: poetry hoax literaure


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