Thomas Sprat

author

Thomas Sprat

1635–1713

A lively Restoration-era writer and churchman, remembered for helping shape the early story of the Royal Society and for his clear, polished prose. His work sits at the meeting point of science, religion, politics, and literature in late 17th-century England.

1 Audiobook

The Plague of Athens, which hapned in the second year of the Peloponnesian Warre First described in Greek by Thucydides; then in Latin by Lucretius. Now attempted in English

The Plague of Athens, which hapned in the second year of the Peloponnesian Warre First described in Greek by Thucydides; then in Latin by Lucretius. Now attempted in English

by Thomas Sprat, Thomas Hobbes, Thucydides

About the author

Born in 1635 at Beaminster in Dorset, Thomas Sprat was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where he became part of the intellectual world that helped give rise to the early Royal Society. He built a reputation as a writer as well as a clergyman, and he is still especially associated with The History of the Royal Society (1667), one of the best-known early accounts of England's new scientific culture.

Sprat went on to a prominent church career, serving as Bishop of Rochester from 1684 and also as dean of Westminster. His life unfolded during the turbulent years of the Restoration and after, and his writings reflect that world: witty, orderly, and deeply engaged with public life.

Readers often come to Sprat for more than biography alone. He remains interesting because he wrote at a moment when English prose, experimental science, and public debate were all being reshaped, and his work helps modern readers hear that change happening in real time.