William Cowper was the son of John Cowper, rector of Great Berkampstead. At Westminster School (1742-49) he was part of the quartet of poetical wits that included Cumberland, Churchill, and Lloyd; he studied law at the Middle Temple (1752), worked as a commissioner of bankrupts (1759-64), and wrote satires and periodical essays. A government career was abruptly terminated by a first bout of mental illness in 1763. Cowper spent time in a sanatorium and was treated by Nathaniel Cotton before going to live the Rev. Morley Unwin, an evangelical minister. Upon his death, Cowper and Mrs. Unwin moved to Olney, where he wrote most of the poems for which he is remembered.
TEXT RECORDS:
1763A Dissertation on the Modern Ode.
1781Anti-Thelyphthora. A Tale in Verse.
1782The Winter Nosegay.
1788The Morning Dream.
PUBLICATIONS:
Olney hymns [with John Newton]. 1779.
T. Scott, The Force of Truth [ed. Cowper]. 1779.
Anti-Thelyphora: a tale in verse. 1781.
Poems. 2 vols, 1782.
The task, a poem, in six books. 1785.
The history of John Gilpin. 1785.
Homer, The Iliad and the Odyssey, translated into blank verse by Cowper. 2 vols, 1791.
Maria F. C. Cowper, Original poems by a lady [ed. Cowper]. 1792.
James Hurdis, Sir Thomas More [ed. Cowper]. 1792.
Latin and Italian poems of Milton translated into English verse, and a fragment of a commentary on Paradise lost by the late William Cowper, ed. William Hayley. 1808.
Memoir of the early life of William Cowper written by himself. 1816.
Correspondence, ed. John Johnson. 1817.
Private correspondence. 2 vols, 1824.
Poems, the early productions of William Cowper, now first published. 1826.
Autobiography. 1835.
Works: poems, correspondence, and translations, ed. Robert Southey. 15 vols, 1835-37.
Correspondence, ed. Thomas Wright. 1904.
Complete poetical works, ed. H. S. Milford. 1905.
Unpublished and uncollected letters, ed. Thomas Wright. 1925.
John Milton, Poetical works, Latin and Italian [trans. Cowper]. 1935.
Correspondence of John Wilkes and Charles Churchill, ed. Edward H. Weatherly. 1954.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Westminster School
Middle Temple
Inns of Court
poet
translator
editor
The Connoisseur
St. James's Magazine
Gentleman's Magazine
Analytical Review
General Magazine and Impartial Review
Bp. Lewis Bagot
Rev. Moses Browne
Walter Churchey
Rev. Charles Churchill
George Colman
Dr. Nathaniel Cotton
Richard Cumberland
Rev. John Duncombe
William Duncombe
William Hayley
Rev. James Hurdis
Robert Lloyd
Judith Cowper Madan
Thomas Park
Rev. Richard Polwhele
Thomas Clio Rickman
George Romney
Anna Seward
Charlotte Smith
Bonnell Thornton
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; DLB.
"Particulars of Mr. Cowper and his Poems" Gentleman's Magazine 56 (January 1786) 5; Catalogue of five hundred Celebrated Authors (1788); Roach's Beauties of the Poets (1794); "William Cowper" Gentleman's Magazine 65 (1795) ii 732-33; David Rivers, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 70 (May, June 1800) 487, 584; "Account of William Cowper" European Magazine 37 (May 1800) 365-68; obituary in Monthly Magazine 9 (June 1800) 498-500; "Biographical Account of Mr. Cowper" Monthly Magazine and American Review [New York] 3 (September 1800) 224-28; Samuel Greatheed, "Particulars of the Life of Cowper" European Magazine 38 (October 1800) 250-56; Annual Register for 1800 (1800) 12; "Memoirs of William Cowper" Lady's Monthly Museum 6 (February 1801) 85-89 [portrait]; "Account of William Cowper" Scots Magazine 63 (March 1801) 157-61; obituary in Universal Magazine 1801 (May 1801) 332-35; William Toone, "Poems of Cowper" Monthly Mirror 12 (September 1801) 167-69; "Thomson and Cowper" Monthly Mirror 12 (October 1801) 230-32; Poetical Register for 1801 (1802); "Remarks on Cowper and Darwin" Monthly Magazine 16 (September 1803) 100-03; "Cowper, the Poet" Boston Weekly Magazine 2 (5 November 1803) 5-6; Poetical Register for 1802 (1803); William Hayley, Life and Posthumous Writings of Cowper (1803-04); Francis Jeffrey, "Review of Hayley's Cowper" Edinburgh Review 2 (1803); Cowper Illustrated, by a Series of Views in or near the Park of Weston Underwood, Bucks (1803); "Biographical Sketches: Cowper" Flowers of Literature for 1803 (1804) 23-29 [portrait]; "Milton and Cowper" Flowers of Literature for 1803 (1804) 54-57; "Cowper" The Hive [Lancaster PA] (11 January 1804) 11; "Brief Account of William Cowper" Literary Tablet [Hanover NH] 1 (3, 17 May 1804) 74-75, 78-79; Samuel Egerton Brydges, in Censura Literaria 1 (1805) 205-16; "Observations on the Life and Writings of Cowper" Literary Miscellany [Cambridge MA] 1 (1805) 70-77; "Character of Cowper" Literary Magazine and American Register 7 (June 1807) 372-77; Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); "William Cowper" Belfast Monthly Magazine 4 (January 1810) 37-43; Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Nathan Drake, Essays illustrative of the Rambler (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); "William Cowper" The Champion (23 October 1814) 342-43; "Cowper's Poems" North American Review 2 (January 1816) 233-41; Stephen Simpson, "Life of William Cowper" The Portico [Baltimore] 1-2 (January-October 1816) 53-63, 121-32, 218-33, 307-15, 409-18, 480-94, 37-45, 136-42, 394-304; "Works and Genius of Cowper" The Portico [Baltimore] 3 (February-May 1817) 106-14, 202-06, 276-82, 389-97; "Essays on Cowper's the Task" Christian Observer 17-18 (May-June 1818, January-April 1819) 300-04, 374-78, 21-25, 86-91, 226-31, 363-67; William Hazlitt, Lectures (1818); Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); John Aikin, Select Works of the British Poets (1820); "Poets of Rural Life: Cowper" New Monthly Magazine 2 (1821) 153-57; "Character of the late William Cowper" Talisman 2 (1821) 33-34; "Eminent Authors: Cowper" Literary Speculum 1 (March 1822) 308-10; Reginal Heber, "Private Correspondence of Cowper" Quarterly Review 30 (1823); "Cowper's House at Olney" Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction 4 (1824) 89; William Hazlitt, Select British Poets (1824); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); "Genius of Cowper" New York Mirror 3 (22 October 1825) 102; Biographical Magazine 1 (1829) [portrait]; George B. Cheever, Studies in Poetry ... Elegant Extracts (1830); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Allan Cunningham, "Literature of the Last Fifty Years" The Athenaeum No. 313 (26 October 1833) 714-15; W. B. O. Peabody, "Life of Cowper" North American Review 38 (1834); life by Robert Southey (1835); Robert Aris Willmott, Sacred Poets, Second Series (1838); Henry T. Tuckerman, "Cowper" Southern Literary Messenger [Richmond] 6 (December 1840) 838-42; Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Ebebezer Elliott, "Cowper and Burns" Edinburgh Magazine 9 (1842); George B. Cheever, Lectures on the Life, Genius and Insanity of Cowper (1843); William Howitt, Homes and Haunts of the ... British Poets (1847); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Goldwin Smith, William Cowper (1880); The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); George E. Woodberry, "Cowper's Letters" The Nation 39 (1884); Thomas Wright, The Life of William Cowper (1892); Austin Dobson, "In Cowper's Arbour" in Eighteenth-Century Vignettes (1892-96); J. C. Tarver, "Cowper's Ouse" Macmillan's Magazine 82 (1900); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Edward Dowden, "Cowper and William Hayley" in Essays Modern and Elizabethan (1910) 151-90; Old Westminsters (1928); Lodowick C. Hartley, "The Stricken Deer and his Contemporary Reputation" Studies in Philology 36 (1939) 637-50; Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1942); Charles Ryskamp, William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esquire (1959); Norma Russell, A Bibliography of Cowper to 1837 (1963); Morris Golden, "Churchill's Literary Influence on Cowper" JEGP 66 (1967) 655-65; Valentine, British Establishment (1970); Butt, OHEL (1979); James King, William Cowper (1986); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for William Cowper:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for William Cowper:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)