Thomas Deloney
Thomas Deloney (1543 – April 1600) was an English novelist and balladist.
He began his working life as a silk-weaver in Norwich. He then moved to London. An entry in the parish register of St Giles Cripplegate from October 16, 1586, records the baptism of his son Richard [1].
In the course of the next ten years is known to have written about fifty ballads, some of which got him into trouble, and caused him to keep a low profile for a time.
His more important work as a novelist, in which he ranks with Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe, was not noted until much later. He appears to have turned to this genre to try to keep out of trouble.
Less under the influence of John Lyly and other preceding writers than Greene, he is more natural, simple, and direct, and writes of middle-class citizens and tradesmen with light humour. Of his novels, Thomas of Reading is in honour of clothiers,[2] Jack of Newbury celebrates weaving, and The Gentle Craft is dedicated to the praise of shoemakers. He "dy'd poorely," but was "honestly buried."
There is evidence to suggest that his son travelled to the Virginia colony. His descendants then spread into Alabama, (Schaal & Mineral Springs)Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana and Tennessee.
References
- ^ Rollison, David A Commonwealth of the People: Popular Politics and England's Long Social Revolution, 1066-1649, Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 330
- ^ See Thomas Deloney (Charles Roberts Aldrich and Lucian Swift Kirtland, editors), Thomas Deloney His Thomas of Reading and Three Ballads on the Spanish Armada (New York: J. F. Taylor & Company, 1903).
Bibliography
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.
Mann, F.O. (ed) The Works of Thomas Deloney Oxford Clarendon Press, 1912. [1]