author
Richard Cobbold
1797–1877
A country clergyman with a storyteller’s eye, he turned Suffolk life, local legend, and lively historical incident into popular Victorian reading. He is best remembered for The History of Margaret Catchpole, a romanticized retelling of the adventures of a real woman from his home region.
3 Audiobooks
The History of Margaret Catchpole, a Suffolk Girl
by Richard Cobbold
Geoffery Gambado : or, A simple remedy for hypochondriacism and melancholy splenetic humours
by Richard Cobbold
Freston Tower : A tale of the times of Cardinal Wolsey
by Richard Cobbold
About the author
Born in Ipswich in 1797, Richard Cobbold was a British writer and Church of England clergyman. He came from the well-known Cobbold family and was educated at Cambridge before entering the church. Much of his life and writing remained closely tied to Suffolk, the county that supplied so many of his settings, characters, and local traditions.
Cobbold served for many years as rector of Wortham, and alongside parish work he wrote fiction, historical tales, and religious pieces for a wide Victorian readership. His best-known book is The History of Margaret Catchpole (1845), based on the life of a Suffolk woman whose story had already become part fact, part legend.
What makes Cobbold interesting today is the way his work preserves the texture of 19th-century local life. His books blend clerical seriousness, affection for place, and a taste for dramatic storytelling, offering modern readers a window into the world of rural East Anglia as well as the popular reading habits of his time.