author
Matthew Feilde
Best remembered for writing on public libraries and the reading life, this little-known author left behind works that capture the literary and civic concerns of 18th- and 19th-century Britain.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Matthew Feilde appears to have been a British writer whose surviving works include Songs, duets, &c. in Vertumnus and Pomona from 1782 and She hath done what she could, a later piece urging the adoption of the Public Libraries Act in St. Marylebone. The records available online point to him as an author connected with theater, song, and public argument rather than as a widely documented literary celebrity.
Because reliable biographical detail is scarce, not much can be confirmed about his life beyond the works attributed to him in library and book records. What does stand out is the range of his writing: on one side, a dramatic pastoral linked to the London stage; on the other, a civic-minded appeal in support of free public access to books and reading.
That makes Feilde an interesting figure for curious listeners: a writer preserved less by fame than by the themes his work carried forward, especially the idea that literature and libraries belong in everyday public life.