Book excerpt: In 1763, an 11-year-old boy named Thomas Chatterton began publishing mature works of poetry. Before long, he was fooling the literary world by passing his work off as that of a non-existent 15th-century poet named Thomas Rowley—which he did until unmasked by Horace Walpole. Brought up in poverty and without a father, he studied furiously and went on to try and earn a living from his writing. After impressing the likes of the Lord Mayor, William Beckford and the radical leader John Wilkes, he eagerly looked for an outlet in London for his political works, but was unable to make a decent living and, despairing, poisoned himself at the age of seventeen. Chatterton had a significant impact on Romantic artists including Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats; with numerous notable poems, plays, and paintings having been dedicated to him since his untimely demise. This new collection contains classic essays from various writers on Chatterton's life and work. Contents include: “Sonnet to Chatterton, by John Keats”, “Thomas Chatterton 1752–1770, A Biography from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 6”, “Monody on the Death of Chatterton, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge”, “Thomas Chatterton, by Henry Francis Cary”, “Thomas Chatterton, by Mabel E. Wotton”, “Poem of Thomas Chatterton, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti”, “Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley, An Essay by Edmond Malone”, “Resolution and Independence, An Excerpt by William Wordsworth”, and “Thomas Chatterton, by William Charles Mark Kent”. Read & Co. Books is publishing this brand new collection of classic essays for the enjoyment of a new generation of readers.