Narrative

George Crabbe

13. George Crabbe was born December 24, 1754 in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Although he is not as frequently anthologized today as some Romantic writers, such as his friends Sir Walter Scott and William Wordsworth, Crabbe achieved success in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a celebrated composer of bucolic poetry. After completing his medical training in London in 1777, Crabbe returned to Aldeburgh to set up practice, but found little success as a surgeon. Having already published his first book in 1775, a satire entitled Inebriety, he moved to London in 1780 to try working as a writer. Although initially unable to overcome the financial burden of publishing his work, Crabbe found a benefactor in 1781 when he secured the patronage of Edmund Burke. With Burke’s financial aid, Crabbe was able to publish two narrative poems, The Library (1781) and The Village (1783). In addition to providing monetary assistance, Burke also arranged for Crabbe to become a clergyman. Crabbe served in a number of rural parishes for the rest of his life and, in 1782, became chaplain to the Duke of Rutland. This volume of The Pocket Magazine of Classic and Polite Literature (v.6: 1820) includes three engravings from Crabbe’s Poems.