Thomas Roscoe

Thomas Roscoe (Liverpool 23 June 1791 – 24 September 1871 London) was an English author and translator.

Life

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Tourist in Italy, 1831

The fifth son of William Roscoe, he was born in Toxteth Park, Liverpool in 1791, and educated by Dr. W. Shepherd and by Mr. Lloyd, a private tutor.[1]

Soon after his father's financial troubles in 1816, which led to bankruptcy, Roscoe began to write in local magazines and journals, and he continued to follow literature as a profession. He died at age 80, on 24 September 1871, at Acacia Road, St. John's Wood, London.[1]

Works

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Roscoe's major original works were:[1]

  • Gonzalo, the Traitor: a Tragedy, 1820.
  • The King of the Peak [anon.], 1823, 3 vols.
  • Owain Goch: a Tale of the Revolution [anon.], 1827, 3 vols.
  • The Tourist in Switzerland and Italy, 1830; the first volume of the Landscape Annual, followed for eight years by similar volumes on Italy, France, and Spain.
  • Wanderings and Excursions in North Wales, 1836.
  • Wanderings in South Wales, with Louisa Anne Twamley the naturalist, 1837.
  • The London and Birmingham Railway, 1839. with illustrations from George Dodgson, William Radclyffe, Edward Radclyffe and others
  • Book of the Grand Junction Railway, 1839 (the last two were issued together as the Illustrated History of the London and North-Western Railway).
  • Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra, 1839 London Thomas Tegg
  • Legends of Venice, 1841.
  • Belgium in a Picturesque Tour, 1841.
  • A Summer Tour in the Isle of Wight, 1843.
  • Life of William the Conqueror, 1846.
  • The Last of the Abencerages, and other Poems, 1850.
  • The Fall of Granada.

Roscoe's translations were:[1]

Roscoe edited The Juvenile Keepsake, 1828–30; The Novelists' Library, with Biographical and Critical Notices, 1831–3, 17 vols.; the works of Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, and Jonathan Swift (1840–9, 3 vols.), and new issues of his father's Lorenzo de' Medici and Leo the Tenth.[1]

Family

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Roscoe married, or cohabited with, Elizabeth Edwards, and had seven children, including Jane Elizabeth St John, writer and wife of Horace Stebbing Roscoe St John.[1][3]

Notes

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Lee, Sidney, ed. (1897). "Roscoe, Thomas" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 49. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ^ Frederick Burwick; Nancy Moore Goslee; Diane Long Hoeveler (30 January 2012). The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature. John Wiley & Sons. p. 654. ISBN 978-1-4051-8810-4. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  3. ^ Truman, R. W. "Roscoe, Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/24083. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainLee, Sidney, ed. (1897). "Roscoe, Thomas". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 49. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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