28 Facts About Thomas Gray

Thomas Gray was an English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar, and fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Thomas Gray is widely known for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, published in 1751.

Thomas Gray was even offered the position of Poet Laureate in 1757 after the death of Colley Cibber, though he declined.

Thomas Gray's writing is conventionally considered to be pre-Romantic but recent critical developments deny such teleological classification.

Thomas Gray's father, Philip Gray, was a scrivener and his mother, Dorothy Antrobus, was a milliner.

Thomas Gray was the fifth of twelve children, and the only one to survive infancy.

An 1803 newspaper article including a biography of Thomas Gray suggests that Thomas Gray almost died in infancy due to suffocation from a fullness of blood.

Thomas Gray lived with his mother after she left his abusive and mentally unwell father.

Thomas Gray's mother paid for him to go to Eton College, where his uncles Robert and William Antrobus worked.

Thomas Gray recalled his schooldays as a time of great happiness, as is evident in his "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College".

Thomas Gray was a delicate and scholarly boy who spent his time reading and avoiding athletics.

Thomas Gray lived in his uncle's household rather than at college.

Thomas Gray made three close friends at Eton: Horace Walpole, son of the Prime Minister Robert Walpole; Thomas Ashton; and Richard West, son of another Richard West.

Thomas Gray wrote letters to friends listing all the things he disliked: the masters and the Fellows.

Thomas Gray is supposed to have been afraid of fire, and had attached a bar outside his window to which a rope could be tied.

When Thomas Gray sent his most famous poem, "Elegy", to Walpole, Walpole sent off the poem as a manuscript and it appeared in different magazines.

Thomas Gray then published the poem himself and received the credit he was due.

Thomas Gray began seriously writing poems in 1742, mainly after the death of his close friend Richard West, which inspired "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West".

Thomas Gray moved to Cambridge and began a self-directed programme of literary study, becoming one of the most learned men of his time.

Thomas Gray became a Fellow first of Peterhouse, and later of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Thomas Gray spent most of his life as a scholar in Cambridge, and only later in his life did he begin travelling again.

Thomas Gray was so self-critical and fearful of failure that he published only thirteen poems during his lifetime.

Thomas Gray perhaps knew these men, sharing ideas about death, mortality, and the finality and sublimity of death.

Thomas Gray wrote light verse, including Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes, a mock elegy concerning Horace Walpole's cat.

Thomas Gray's surviving letters show his sharp observation and playful sense of humour.

Thomas Gray is well known for his phrase, "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," from Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.

Thomas Gray considered his two Pindaric odes, The Progress of Poesy and The Bard, as his best works.

When his duties allowed, Thomas Gray travelled widely throughout Britain to places such as Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Scotland and most notably the Lake District in search of picturesque landscapes and ancient monuments.