Alaric A. Watts received his early education at Wye College Grammar School and the Academy at Ashford before finding employment in a grammar school at the age of fifteen. He married Zilla Wiffen, the youngest sister of Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen, wrote poetry, and worked as a journalist for Tory newspapers. Under his editorship the Literary Souvenir (1825-35) became one of the first and most successful of the literary annuals. Watts corresponded with most of the leading writers of the era.
TEXT RECORDS:
1820Lines, written on the blank Leaf of The Angel of the World and other Poems, by the Rev. G. Croly.
1820Stanzas, written near the Croix de la Flegere, in the Vale of Chamouni.
1823The Profession. A Sketch.
1824Lines written beneath a Picture.
1824Posthumous Fame.
1825The Sleeping Cupid. From the celebrated Picture by Guido, in the Collection of Earl Fitzwilliam.
PUBLICATIONS:
Poetical sketches: with stanzas for music, and other poems. 1822.
Poetical sketches, The profession; The broken heart, etc. 1823; 1824; 1828.
The literary souvenir, ed. Watts. 1825-35.
The poetical album, and register of modern fugitive poetry. 2 vols, 1828-29.
Scenes of life and shades of character. 2 vols, 1831.
Lyrics of the heart: with other poems. 1851.
Men of the time, etc., ed. Watts. 1856.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Anglican
Wye College Grammar School
Ashford Academy
clerk
schoolmaster
tutor
editor
journalist
poet
The Monthly Magazine
New Monthly Magazine
The Literary Gazette
Literary Magnet
Gentleman's Magazine
The New Times
Leeds Intelligencer
Manchester Courier
The Standard
Edinburgh Literary Journal
Literary Souvenir
Pledge of Friendship
The Iris
The Keepsake
New Year's Gift
John Anster
Bernard Barton
Rev. William Lisle Bowles
Alfred Bunn
Thomas Campbell
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Rev. George Croly
Rev. Thomas Dale
Felicia Hemans
Thomas Kibble Hervey
Rev. Francis Hodgson
Thomas Hood
Mary Howitt
William Howitt
Washington Irving
William Jerdan
Charles Lamb
John Macken
William Maginn
Mary Russell Mitford
Thomas Pringle
Bryan Waller Procter
William Read
Sir Walter Scott
Horace Smith
Robert Southey
John Taylor Esq.
Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen
William Wordsworth
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; CBEL (3rd ed).
"Bob Tickler on Watts' Poetical Sketches" Newcastle Magazine NS 3 (June 1824) 276-79; "Alaric A. Watts" La Belle Assemblee S3 1 (Feburary 1825) 66-69; "Alaric Watts" Nepenthes No. 49 (1825) 407; Alaric Alexander Watts, "Some Passages in the Life of a Magazine Editor" Literary Magnet (1826); "Watts as Plagiarist" Literary Chronicle 8 (8 April 1826) 219; Allan Cunningham, "Literature of the last Fifty Years" The Athenaeum (16 November 1833) 772; William Maginn, "Gallery of Literary Characters: Mr. Alaric Attila Watts" Fraser's Magazine 11 (June 1835) 652 [portrait]; David Macbeth Moir, Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century (1851; 1856) 290-91; Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 216 (May 1864) 676-77; Chambers's Cyclopaedia of English Literature 3rd ed. (1876); Alaric Alfred Watts [son], Alaric Watts: A Narrative of his Life, 2 vols (1884) [portrait]; Frederic Boase, in Modern English Biography (1892-1921); Maclise Gallery (1898); Letters of Alaric Alexander Watts from the Blackwood's Papers, ed. Estus Cantrell Park (1957); Jack, OHEL (1963); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Alaric Alexander Watts:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
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AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
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