author
Thomas Gray
1716–1771
Best known for the haunting "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," this quiet, careful poet helped shape 18th-century English verse. His small body of work left an outsized mark, pointing ahead to the Romantic movement.
3 Audiobooks
Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes
by Samuel Johnson, Thomas Gray, Thomas Parnell, T. (Tobias) Smollett
Select Poems of Thomas Gray
by Thomas Gray
About the author
Born in London in 1716, Thomas Gray was educated at Eton and later at Cambridge, where he spent much of his life as a scholar and fellow. He became known not only as a poet but also as a gifted letter-writer and a serious classical scholar.
Gray published relatively little, but what he did write endured. His most famous poem, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (published in 1751), became one of the best-known poems in English, admired for its reflective mood, memorable phrasing, and sympathy for ordinary lives.
Though often seen as a reserved and meticulous writer, Gray's influence was lasting. Britannica describes him as a dominant poetic figure of the mid-18th century and a precursor of Romanticism, and the Thomas Gray Archive reflects the continuing interest in both his poetry and his life. He died in Cambridge in 1771.