author
French Laurence
1757–1809
A sharp legal mind and political writer in late 18th-century Britain, he moved in the same intellectual world as Edmund Burke and became Burke’s literary executor. His life joined law, Parliament, and letters in a way that gives his work a distinctly public edge.
1 Audiobook
The Rolliad, in Two Parts Probationary Odes for the Laureatship & Political Eclogues
by Richard Tickell, George Ellis, French Laurence, Joseph Richardson
About the author
Born in Bath on April 3, 1757, French Laurence was an English jurist, politician, and man of letters. He was educated at Winchester and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and built a distinguished career in civil law.
Laurence became closely associated with Edmund Burke, one of the leading political thinkers of the age, and was later named Burke’s literary executor. Alongside his legal work, he also served in Parliament, giving him a foot in both the courtroom and public debate.
He is remembered less as a novelist or poet than as a cultivated public intellectual whose writing and career reflected the political and literary life of his time. He died on February 27, 1809.