Robert Bloomfield | Laboring-Class Poets Online

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Names

First Name:

Robert

Last Name(s):

Bloomfield

Gender:

male

Bio Dates

Birth Year:

1766

Death Year:

1823

Locations

Nationality:

English

Birthplace:

Honington, Suffolk

Other Locations:

City Road, London

Shefford, Bedfordshire

Transatlantic:

No

Class and Labor

Industry:

Occupation:

Disability and Illness:

other illness

rheumatism

Disability and Illness Description:

Suffered from rheumatism and the recurrence of a stomach ailment (ODNB)

References and Sources

References and Sources:

Biblio Texts:

21-8

260-1

163

II 208-19

227-20

1, 151-72, IX, 19-22 and X, 257

117-31

87-109

99-116

6-9, 15, 20

60-1

87

96

85-6

243

216

247-50

items 118-24

202-3

items 1289-1302

9-10

10-36

74 (numerous mss and letters)

Other Digital References:

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Other Analog References:

William Wickett and Nicholas Duval, The Farmer’s Boy, the Story of a Suffolk Poet, Robert Bloomfield, His Life and Poems 1766-1823 (Lavenham: Terence Dalton, 1971)

Jonathan Lawson, Robert Bloomfield (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980)

Simon White, John Goodridge and Bridget Keegan (eds), Robert Bloomfield: Lyric, Class, and the Romantic Canon (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2006)

Simon White, Robert Bloomfield, Romanticism and the Poetry of Community (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007)

John Goodridge and Bridget Keegan (eds), Robert Bloomfield: The Inestimable Blessing of Letters, online essay collection, Romantic Circles Praxis series (2011)

The Robert Bloomfield Society Newsletter (ongoing, pub. by the Bloomfield Society, founded in 2000)

Johnson, items 486, 754, 840

Tim Fulford, "The Production of a Poet: Robert Bloomfield, His Patrons and His Publishers", in Romantic Poetry and Literary Coteries (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2015), 131-63

Manuscript Information:

There are important collections of Bloomfield books at NTU and in the BL.

Robert Bloomfield's Publications

Title	Publication Date	Publisher	Edition	Other Editions	Editor	Collaborator	Patron	Subscription Description	Key Subscribers	Pages	Call Number	Dialect	Language	Digitized or Digital Editions	Additional Notes
The Remains of Robert Bloomfield	1824	Baldwin, Cradock & Joy			Joseph Weston									Archive.org

Personal Map

Relationships

Source	Relationship Type	Target	Description	View
Robert Bloomfield	read	John Clare	"Bloomfield found some happiness in the final year of his life through a reawakened interest in John Clare's poetry" (ODNB)	View
Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton	patronized	Robert Bloomfield	"In addition to his income from his two books, his cobbling, and his manufacture of aeolian harps, Bloomfield also began to receive an annuity of £15 from the duke of Grafton. Characteristically, Bloomfield generously shared his income with his brother George and his mother. Bloomfield's good financial fortunes seemed to wax even further when in late 1802 the duke of Grafton appointed him to the position of undersealer in the king's bench court. ... Bloomfield was beset with other sadnesses and difficulties. First, there was the death of his patron the old duke of Grafton, who was succeeded by his son Lord Charles Fitzroy. The new duke of Grafton did not share his father's enthusiasm for cobbler-poets, and Bloomfield had to enlist the services of Capel Lofft to petition the new duke for his £15 annuity, which Fitzroy eventually granted but was thereafter sometimes desultory in supplying." (ODNB)	View
Capel Lofft	patronized	Robert Bloomfield	"In November 1798, however, George [Bloomfield] showed the manuscript [The Farmer's Boy] to Capel Lofft, the radical editor and writer and a prominent figure in Suffolk society, who liked it well enough to make grammatical and orthographical amendments to the text and shepherd the poem into print along with his own evaluative preface. The publishers Vernor and Hood agreed to publish The Farmer's Boy, but it did not begin to appear in shops until March 1800." (ODNB)	View
Robert Bloomfield	read, influenced by	James Thomson (1700-1748 NPF)	About 1783 ... Robert and George decamped and took up residence at Blue Hart Court, Bell Alley. Another lodger there, James Kay, generously lent Robert a number of books, among them Paradise Lost and James Thomson's The Seasons, the latter of which became his favourite reading material. Over the years Bloomfield developed a prodigious memory for poetry and could recite any passage from The Seasons or Thomson's The Castle of Indolence ...	View
Robert Bloomfield	read	John Milton	About 1783 ... Robert and George decamped and took up residence at Blue Hart Court, Bell Alley. Another lodger there, James Kay generously lent Robert a number of books, among them Paradise Lost ... (ODNB)	View
Robert Bloomfield	read, influenced by	Robert Burns	Over the years Bloomfield developed a prodigious memory for poetry and could recite any passage from The Seasons or Thomson's The Castle of Indolence, as well as large swathes of Burns. (ODNB)	View
Robert Sewell	addressed writing to	Robert Bloomfield		View