author
Thomas Gent
b. 1780
A self-taught printer and early memoirist, he turned a hard apprenticeship and years in the book trade into lively writing about life, work, and local history in eighteenth-century England.
2 Audiobooks
Poems (1828)
by Thomas Gent
Poetic Sketches A Collection of Miscellaneous Poetry
by Thomas Gent
About the author
Born in Dublin in 1693, he was the son of Thomas Gent, a rotunda-keeper, and was apprenticed to a printer while still young. After a difficult start in the trade, he eventually settled in York, where he worked as a printer, bookseller, and writer and became known for publishing local histories and other practical works.
He is especially remembered for The Life of Mr. Thomas Gent, Printer, of York, an autobiographical work first published in 1832 from a manuscript he had written earlier. The book gives a vivid picture of the printing trade, provincial literary life, and the struggles of an independent craftsman in the eighteenth century.
Alongside his memoir, he produced historical and topographical works on places including York, Hull, and Ripon. He died in 1778, leaving behind a valuable firsthand record of the world of printing and bookselling outside London.