Matthew Prior
A Study of his Public Career and Correspondence

The first full-length published biography of the poet and diplomat Matthew Prior (1664–1721).

Leopold George Wickham Legg (Author)

9781108015905, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 September 2010

366 pages, 1 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2.1 cm, 0.47 kg

Matthew Prior (1664–1721) was a minor poet and diplomat under King William III and subsequently Queen Anne. As an envoy to the Netherlands and France and negotiator of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 he had a ringside seat at the European power struggles of his time, while at the same time forging a literary career by publishing poetry and angling for the post of Poet Laureate. Prior's surviving correspondence to his patrons and paymasters is a uniquely witty record of diplomatic life. The first full-length biography of Prior, this book was first published in 1921. Its author, Leopold George Wickham Legg, was an editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. The appendixes include detailed information about Prior's family background and transcriptions of some of his surviving letters and a diary from 1712.

Preface
Titles of books referred to
1. Youth and education
2. Apprenticeship at the Hague
3. The Peace of Ryswick
4. The embassy at Paris
5. The embassy at Paris
6. The Irish Secretaryship and Parliament
7. The commission of trade and the feud with the Duchess of Marlborough
8. 'Mat's Peace'
9. Paris once more
10. The last year of Queen Anne
11. The years of trouble
12. Last years and death
Appendixes
Biographical notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]