Thomas Gaspey | |
---|---|
Born | 31 March 1788 Hoxton, Middlesex, England |
Died | 8 December 1871 Shooter's Hill, Kent, England |
Nationality | English |
Spouse | Anne Camp |
Children | William Gaspey, Thomas W. Gaspey |
Thomas Gaspey (31 March 1788 – 8 December 1871) was an English novelist and journalist.
Gaspey was born in Hoxton as the son of William Gaspey, a lieutenant in the navy. While a youth he wrote verses for yearly pocket-books, and when about twenty contributed to Literary Recreations, a monthly publication, edited by Eugenius Roche of the Morning Post. Soon afterwards he was engaged as parliamentary reporter on the Morning Post, contributing also dramatic reviews, political parodies, and reports of trials for treason. In this paper he wrote an Elegy on the Marquis of Anglesey's Leg, a jeu d'esprit which has been persistently attributed to Canning. On the Morning Post he was employed sixteen years, then for three or four years on the Courier, a government paper, as sub-editor. In 1828 he bought a share in the Sunday Times , the tone of which paper he raised as a literary and dramatic organ, Horace Smith, the Rev. T. Dale, Alfred Crowquill, E. L. Blanchard, Gilbert à Beckett, and others contributing.
His Richmond (1827) and The History of George Godfrey (1828) are considered as early examples of the Newgate novel. In 1836 he released The Self-Condemned a historical novel set in Elizabethan Ireland.
He was for many years the senior member of the council of the Literary Fund. He was considered an excellent mimic. The last twenty years of his life were spent quietly on his property at Shooter's Hill, Kent, where he died on 8 December 1871, aged 83, and was buried at Plumstead, Kent.
He married Anne Camp in 1810 or 1811, and she died on 22 January 1883. His son, Thomas W. Gaspey, Ph.D., of Heidelberg, who died on 22 December 1871, was author of works on the Rhine and Heidelberg, and of several linguistic handbooks. Another son, William Gaspey (born at Westminster 20 June 1812, died at 17 St. Ann's Road, North Brixton, 19 July 1888), was a prolific writer in prose and verse.
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The Self-Condemned is an 1836 historical novel by the British writer Thomas Gaspey, published in three volumes by Richard Bentley in London. Set in Elizabethan Ireland, it was the first novel Gaspey had published since George Godfrey in 1828 due to his work on The Sunday Times. In a preface he acknowledged the assistance of the Irish antiquarian Thomas Crofton Croker for the historical background. The American edition was released by Harper and Brothers in New York. The principle characters are Edmund Nagle an Irish chieftain and his sister Grace, at the time of the Munster Plantation and Desmond Rebellion.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : "Gaspey, Thomas". Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.