Thomas wright biography

Author: Thomas Wright

Author: Thomas Wright (–)

Biography: Thomas Wright was born in in Olney, Buckinghamshire, the son of W. S. Wright. He worked as a schoolmaster for many years and principal of Cowper School, Olney. Wright turned his extensive reading into numerous biographies—his subjects included Cowper, Defoe, Blake, Pater, Dickens, and many others. In addition, he wrote a popular history of the town of Cowper (). Wright wrote three novels, one of which, The Mystery of St. Dunstan's (), was a historical novel of the time of Defoe "founded on contemporary documents." In he married Angelina Edwards. His obituary in called him an "industrious biography" and stated, "It must by said, however, that his skill and industry in the collection of facts were superior to his literary style, his critical faculty, and his selection and arrangement of his material." His autobiography was published the year of his death.

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References: British Census (); Times (6 April ); Who's Who ()

Fiction Titles:

1. The Chalice of Carden: A Story of Pertinacity and Perseverance. Temp. .  1 vol.  London: Skeffington,
2. The Mystery of St. Dunstan's: A Realistic and Sensational Story of Fleet Street in .  2 vol.  London: Sampson Low,
3. The Blue Firedrake: or, The Wonderful and Strange Relation of the Life and Adventures of Nathan Souldrop.  1 vol.  London: Simpkin,
4. Ianthe of "The Devil's Jumps": A Story of Hind Head in the Old Smuggling Days.  1 vol.  London: R. E. Taylor and Son,

Cite This Page

Bassett, Troy J. "Author: Thomas Wright." At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, —, 31 December , ?aid= Accessed 19 February

Thomas Wright, an English educator, garden designer, and would-be cosmologist, died Feb. 25, , at the age of Wright was an odd chap, an auto-didact whose favorite subject was astronomy, but who had to earn a learning tutoring the children of country squires around Durham, his hometown, while designing gardens in his spare time. But he managed to write, engrave, and publish, by , two books on the largest of all possible subjects, the structure of the universe.

The second of these is more famous; it was published in as An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe. It is the loveliest of all our cosmology books, because it is abundantly adorned with engravings, a few of them large mezzotints that show stars and planets against the blackness of space. Wright learned well from his tutoring days – get their attention, and the rest will follow – and the plates certainly attract the attention of anyone who opens the book. Wright’s engraving of the planets and moons to scale (second image) is simple but accurate – when I taught classes in the history of astronomy, I always used this image to show what was known about the solar system on the eve of William Herschel’s discovery of Uranus in   I would also show Wright’s engraving of three comets (those of , , and ; fourth image) in elliptical orbits, circling the Sun, since this was a new idea at the time, Halley’s prediction of the return of the comet of (Halley’s comet) being not yet confirmed (as it would be in ).

For the English teacher and controversialist, see Thomas Wright (controversialist).

Thomas Wright () was an English recusant and early emotion theorist. Wright is known for his work The Passions of the Minde in generall. Wright is a possible candidate for the priest Ben Jonson referenced during the trials for the Gunpowder Plot.

Life

Wright was born in York. He studied at the Jesuit Douai Seminary and the English College in Rome, then returned to England in carrying intelligence regarding Spanish military strategy. Though he remained a Catholic priest, Wright left the Society of Jesus because of his English sympathies and distaste with Robert Parsons' support of plots against Queen Elizabeth. By Wright had upset Matthew Hutton, the Archbishop of York, and was imprisoned for his vocal recusancy. Wright finished Passions of the Minde shortly before his escape from prison, and published it shortly thereafter. In Passions of the Minde, Wright explores the passions and their relationship to moral psychology. Wright may be responsible for converting Ben Jonson.

Works

Wright is ascribed:

• The Disposition or Garnishmente of the Soule.
• The Passions of the Minde in generall. By Thomas Wright,’London, , which reappeared in "corrected, enlarged, and with sundry new discourses augmented", and was reissued in and This work was dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, third earl of Southampton in the hope that he may be "delivered from inordinate passions", and had commendatory verses by B. I. (Ben Jonson).
• A Succinct Philosophicall Declaration of the Nature of Clymactericall Yeeres, occasioned by the Death of Queene Elizabeth Written by T. W[right]. Printed for T. Thorpe, London,

Another

• Special assistant to the US president, Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council since
• Co-Author 'Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order' (August )
• Director of the Center on the US and Europe, Brookings Institution

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Thomas J. Wright's Biography