George Crabbe (1754-1832)

English poet George Crabbe was born on December 24, 1754 in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. At the age of fourteen, he was apprenticed to a surgeon, but soon turned to verse writing. In 1772, Crabbe was awarded a prize from Wheble’s Lady’s Magazine for a poem about hope. Crabbe then studied midwifery, but in 1780, he went to London to write.

With the support of Edmund Burke, he published three long poems: The Library (1781), The Village (1782), and The Newspaper (1785). During this period he changed professions, becoming a clergyman, chaplain to the Duke of Rutland. Among his writing from the latter part of his life are The Parish Register, The Borough, Tales in Verse, and Tales of the Hall. He died in February 1832.

Our Rare Book Collection has more than more than twenty volumes of works by George Crabbe. We invite you to visit Archives and Special Collections to consult these works, or other parts of our collection. See our Hours on the left sidebar of the Archives and Special Collections home page. In addition, the Libraries have numerous works about Crabbe: biographies, critical interpretations, and the like.

Image credit: By John Murrary [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons