James Montgomery, the son of Moravian missionaries, was born in Ayrshire and educated at the Moravian school at Fulneck. In 1792 he was made clerk and bookkeeper at the Sheffield Register, which he later edited for three decades as the Sheffield Iris. Montgomery was imprisoned for libel in 1795 and 1796, occasioning his Prison Amusements (1797). His devotional poems gained an enormous following on both sides of the Atlantic, and his lectures on poetry delivered at the Royal Institute in 1830 and 1831 were also widely disseminated.
TEXT RECORDS:
1797The Pleasures of Imprisonment: an Epistle to a Friend.
PUBLICATIONS:
The history of a church and a warming pan. 1793.
The trial of James Montgomery for a libel on the war. 1795.
Prison amusements, and other trifles. 1797.
The whisperer; or, tales and speculations. 1798.
The wanderer of Switzerland, and other poems. 1806.
Poems on the abolition of the slave trade. 1809.
The West Indies and other poems. 1810.
The world before the flood: a poem, in ten cantos, with other occasional pieces. 1813.
Verses to the memory of Richard Reynolds. 1816.
Greenland, and other poems. 1819.
Abdallah and Labat. 1821.
Polyhymnia: or select airs of celebrated foreign composers, adapted to English words. 1822.
Songs of Zion: being imitations of psalms. 1822.
Prose, by a poet. 2 vols, 1824.
The Christian psalmist: or hymns selected and original. 1825.
The pelican island, and other poems. 1827.
Poetical works of Rogers, Campbell, James Montgomery, Lamb, and Kirke White. 1829.
Lectures on poetry and general literature. 1833.
Verses in commemoration of the Rev. James Hervey. 1833.
A poet's portfolio: or minor poems: in three books. 1835.
Lives of literary and scientific men of Italy, Spain, etc. 3 vols, 1835-37.
Hymns for the opening of Christ Church, Newark on Trent. 1837.
Poetical works. 4 vols, 1841.
Poetical works, ed. Rufus Griswold. 2 vols, 1845.
Poetical works, ed. R. Carruthers. 5 vols, 1858.
Poems, selected by R. A. Willmott. 1860.
Poems. 1861.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
Irish
English
Dissenter
Fulneck School
poet
book trade
journalist
editor
Sheffield Iris
Eclectic Review
John Buchannan
Josiah Conder
Rev. Francis Hodgson
Barbara Hofland
John Holland
William Howitt
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; CBEL (3rd ed).
"On the Poems of James Montgomery" Universal Magazine NS 5 (June 1806) 827-33; Francis Jeffrey, "Montgomery's Poems" Edinburgh Review 9 (January 1807); "Biographical Sketch of Mr. Montgomery" Monthly Mirror (January 1807); "Biographical Sketch of Mr. Montgomery" The Emerald [Boston] 2 (9, 16 May 1807) 219-21, 231-32; "Biographical Sketches: Mr. James Montgomery" Flowers of Literature for 1806 (1807) 30-32 [portrait]; Robert Southey, "Montgomery's Poems" Quarterly Review 6 (1811); "Memoir of James Montgomery" New Monthly Magazine 10 (January 1819) 513-21 [portrait]; "Mr. Montgomery" Ladies' Monthly Museum S3 16 (July 1822) 17-22; "On the Genius of Montgomery" Literary Speculum 2 (October 1822) 289-300 [portrait]; "James Montgomery" La Belle Assemblee NS 27 (March 1823) 101-03; "Memoir of James Montgomery" European Magazine 87 (January 1825) 5-17; "On the Genius of James Montgomery" The Minerva [New York] NS 3 (7 August 1825) 283-85; "James Montgomery" La Belle Assemblee S3 6 (October 1827) 142-49; Ladies' Monthly Museum S3 26 (November 1827) 241-46 [portrait]; "Brief Account of Montgomery" New-York Mirror 5 (9 February 1828) 243; "Montgomery the Poet" Emerald and Baltimore Literary Gazette 1 (17 May 1828) 37-38; "Memoir of James Montgomery, Esq." Imperial Magazine 10 (August 1828) 681-93 [portrait]; "Memoir of James Montgomery, Esq." The Casket [Philadelphia] NS 1 (December 1828) 542-47; George Barrell Cheever, Studies in Poetry ... Elegant Extracts (1830); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); John Holland, in Psalmists of Britain (1843); John Holland, Poets of Yorkshire (1845); William Howitt, Homes and Haunts of the ... British Poets (1847); George Gilfillan, in Second Gallery of Literary Portraits (1850); Illustrated London News 24 (1854) 417-18, 551 [portrait]; obituary in Athenaeum (6 May 1854); obituary in The Times (8 May 1854); obituary in Gentleman's Magazine NS 41 (June 1854) 659-60; John Holland and J. Everett, Memoirs of Montgomery, 7 vols (1854-56); Illustrated London News 27 (1855) 436; J. W. King, Montgomery, a Memoir (1858); S. Ellis, The Life, Times, and Character of Montgomery (1864); Andrew R. Bonar, Poets and Poetry of Scotland (1864); Frederic Boase, Modern English Biography (1892-1921); W. Odom, Two Sheffield Poets: Montgomery ad Ebenezer Elliott (1929); A. S. Holbrook, "The Life and Work of Montgomery" London Quarterly 179 (1954).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for James Montgomery:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for James Montgomery:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)