author

Thomas Purney

b. 1695

An early 18th-century English poet and critic, he is best remembered for writing about pastoral poetry at a time when literary rules and taste were hotly debated. His surviving work gives a glimpse of an ambitious, thoughtful voice from the Augustan age.

1 Audiobook

A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717)

A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717)

by Thomas Purney

About the author

Thomas Purney was an English writer, poet, and clergyman born in 1695. Modern catalogues, including the British Museum and the Online Books Page, identify him as a British religious figure as well as an author, and they connect him with works published in the 1710s and 1720s.

He is most closely associated with A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717), a critical work that shows his strong interest in poetic theory. Contemporary and later reference material also links him with poems such as The Bashful Swain and Beauty and Simplicity, suggesting that he worked both as a creative writer and as a literary thinker.

Although he is not widely known today, Purney remains of interest to scholars of 18th-century literature because his writing captures the period's arguments about style, taste, and the ideal form of pastoral verse. I couldn't confirm a reliable portrait image of him from the sources I found, which is not unusual for a relatively obscure author of his time.