ENGLISH POETRY 1579-1830: SPENSER AND THE TRADITION

Thomas Gray

(1716-1771)

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Born in London, Thomas Gray made friendships at Eton (1727-34) with Horace Walpole and Richard West; he studied at Cambridge (1734-38, LL.B. 1743) before traveling on the Continent with Walpole; after their quarrel Gray returned to Cambridge where he met his future biographer, William Mason. The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard appeared in 1751; in 1757 Gray rejected an offer of the laureateship and continued to live in academic retirement. In 1768 he was made Cambridge professor of modern history.


TEXT RECORDS:

1742An Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
1742Hymn to Adversity.
1742Ode on the Spring.
1742 ca.[Hymn to Ignorance. A Fragment.]
1750A Long Story.
1751An Elegy wrote in a Country Churchyard.
1757The Bard. A Pindaric Ode.
1757The Progress of Poesy. A Pindaric Ode.
1769Ode Performed in the Senate-House at Cambridge. [Installation Ode.]
1770Copy of an original Letter from Mr. Gray to Mr. T. Warton, on the History of English Poetry.
1770[Letter to James Beattie; on The Minstrel.]
1771[To James Beattie; on The Minstrel.]

PUBLICATIONS:

Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College. 1747.
An elegy wrote in a country church yard. 1751.
Designs by Mr. R. Bentley for six poems by Mr. T. Gray. 1753.
Odes, by Mr. Gray. 1757.
Poems by Mr. Gray. 1768.
Ode performed ... at the installation. 1769.
Poems of Mr. Gray, ed. William Mason. 1775.
Works, ed. Thomas James Mathias. 2 vols, 1814.
Works, ed. John Mitford. 2 vols, 1816.
Works, ed. John Mitford. 4 vols, 1835-37.
Poetical works, ed. John Moultrie. 1845.
Poetical works, ed. Robert Aris Wilmott. 1854.
Works in prose and verse, ed. Edmund Gosse. 4 vols, 1884.
Essays and criticisms, ed. C. S. Northrup. 1911.
Poetical works of Gray and Collins, ed. A. L. Poole, 1917.
Correspondence of Richard Hurd and William Mason and letters of Richard Hurd to Thomas Gray, ed. E. H. Pearce and L. Whibley. 1932.
Letters, ed. P. Toynbee and L. Whibley. 3 vols, 1935.
Poems, ed. H. W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson. 1966.
Poetical works [with Collins and Goldsmith], ed. Roger Lonsdale. 1969.