author
Francis Thompson
1859–1907
Best known for the haunting poem "The Hound of Heaven," this English poet wrote with unusual intensity about faith, suffering, and grace. His life was difficult and often unstable, but that struggle gave his work its distinctive emotional force.
6 Audiobooks
Shelley: An Essay
by Francis Thompson
The Hound of Heaven
by Francis Thompson
New Poems
by Francis Thompson
Poems
by Francis Thompson
Sister Songs: An Offering to Two Sisters
by Francis Thompson
Selected Poems of Francis Thompson
by Francis Thompson
About the author
Born in Preston, Lancashire, in December 1859, Francis Thompson was raised in a Roman Catholic family and was first steered toward medicine by his doctor father. He studied at Owens College in Manchester, but eventually left that path and went to London to try to live by writing.
Those early years were marked by poverty and serious hardship, and his work often drew on spiritual longing and inner conflict. Thompson became closely associated with Catholic literary circles, and his first major collection, Poems (1893), brought him recognition.
He is remembered above all for The Hound of Heaven, a poem that gave powerful expression to the soul’s flight from, and search for, God. Though he died in London in 1907, his reputation endured through readers who were moved by the musical richness of his verse and its deeply felt religious vision.