53 Facts About Thomas Medwin

Thomas Medwin was an early 19th-century English writer, poet and translator.

Thomas Medwin is known chiefly for his biography of his cousin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and for published recollections of his friend, Lord Byron.

Thomas Medwin was a second cousin on both his parents' sides to Percy Bysshe Shelley, who lived two miles away at Field Place, Warnham, and with whom Medwin formed a friendship from childhood onwards.

Thomas Medwin related that Shelley and he remained close friends at Syon House, forming a bond so close that Shelley apparently sleepwalked his way to Thomas Medwin's dormitory.

Thomas Medwin was initially articled as a clerk in his father's law firm in Horsham.

Thomas Medwin showed aptitude in foreign languages and was to become fluent in Greek, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Thomas Medwin began writing poems, including a contribution to The Wandering Jew, a poem attributed to Shelley.

The young Shelley and Thomas Medwin met during their respective holidays for pursuits such as fishing and fox-hunting.

Thomas Medwin's activities involved much carousing and gambling at his club in Brighton and spending money on collecting art.

Thomas Medwin saw action rarely, but was present at the siege of Hathras in 1817 and involved in advances against the Pindaris on the banks of the river Sindh in December 1817.

Thomas Medwin witnessed at least one incident of sati, the ritual burning of a widow, on the Narmuda river in 1818.

Thomas Medwin enthusiastically toured the classical Hindu temples of Gaur, Palibothra, Jagannath and Karla, and the Elephanta and Ellora Caves.

Thomas Medwin's regiment was disbanded at the end of 1818 and Thomas Medwin went on half-pay, attached to a regiment of the Life Guards until 1831, when he sold his commission.

Thomas Medwin was by this time known as Captain Medwin, although there is no evidence that he was ever promoted beyond the rank of lieutenant.

Thomas Medwin was periodically ill during his months in Pisa but worked with Shelley on a number of poems and on the publication of his journal Sketches From Hindoostan.

Shelley was working on Prometheus and would read drafts each evening to Thomas Medwin, who was continuing with a second volume of Oswald and Edwin, An Oriental Sketch.

Thomas Medwin left Shelley in March 1821 to visit Florence, Rome and then Venice, where he continued to write and socialise.

Thomas Medwin joined Byron for episodes of pistol shooting and riding and dined within Byron's inner circle with other friends that included Shelley, Edward E Williams, Leigh Hunt and the recently arrived Edward John Trelawny.

When Thomas Medwin decided to continue his tour of Italy in April 1822, Byron insisted on holding a splendid leaving party for him.

Thomas Medwin travelled first to Rome, where he was introduced to the sculptor Antonio Canova, and then to Naples, before sailing to Genoa.

Thomas Medwin was devastated and returned to Italy, where he learned at Spezia that his friends' bodies had been thrown up out of the sea.

Thomas Medwin met the widows and his friends Byron, Trelawny and Leigh Hunt, who were present at Shelley's cremation, and he put the horror of those days into "Ahasuerus, The Wanderer", a poetic tribute, dedicated to Byron and laid at the feet of the dead Shelley.

The restless Thomas Medwin moved to Paris in 1824, where he met Washington Irving, an American author who shared his enthusiasm for Byron and the Spanish poets, particularly Calderon.

Shortly afterwards Thomas Medwin learned of the death of Lord Byron on 19 April 1824.

However supporters of Thomas Medwin's book included several eminent writers, including Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, who incorporated in his edition of Edward Phillips' Theatrum Petarum Anglicanorum a memoir of Shelley, written by Thomas Medwin.

Captain Thomas Medwin was by then famous, well-off, and able to marry Anne Henrietta Hamilton, Countess of Starnford, on 2 November 1824 in Lausanne.

Thomas Medwin was 36 when he married and took a long honeymoon at Vevey before settling in Florence.

Thomas Medwin settled into a life of style and substance among an English emigre community.

Thomas Medwin's marriage came under strain, and Medwin abandoned his wife and two daughters, leaving friends such as Trelawny and Charles Armitage Brown to sort out his and his wife's affairs.

Thomas Medwin moved to Genoa, where he worked assiduously on a play, Prometheus portatore del fuoco.

In typical fashion, Thomas Medwin dedicated the play to the memory of Shelley.

Genoa turned out to be only an interlude, as Thomas Medwin was expelled for writing a tragedy called The Conspiracy of the Fieschi, which alarmed the Genoese authorities, believing it to be anti-government propaganda.

Thomas Medwin had embarked on well-received translations of Aeschylus' plays into English.

Thomas Medwin did not translate The Suppliants, apparently because he disapproved of "its corruptions".

Thomas Medwin's skill lay in bringing alive Aeschylus's characters through believable dialogue that uses traditional metres and measure.

Thomas Medwin contributed a series of short stories to Bentley's Miscellany.

Thomas Medwin departed from his usual classical fare in The Angler in Wales or Days and Nights of Sportsmen, which is in the tradition of Isaac Walton's The Compleat Angler.

Thomas Medwin's health was poor at this time as can be seen from correspondence with an unsympathetic Bentley now in the New York Library.

In 1837 Thomas Medwin announced that he was moving to Heidelberg, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Germany.

Thomas Medwin became a de facto correspondent for successive magazines including The Athenaeum and The New Monthly Magazine providing impressions of all things German.

Thomas Medwin joined the influential Heidelberg museum and participated fully in the city's literary life, reviewing local theatre for English readers.

Thomas Medwin read the works of German poets including: Karl Gutzkow, Ludwig Tieck, Ludwig Achim von Arnim, Annette von Droste-Hulshoff, Rauch and Diefenbach.

Thomas Medwin lived in Heidelberg for most of the next twenty years, although travelling regularly to Baden-Baden, the setting for much of his only novel, Lady Singleton, published in 1842.

Thomas Medwin used this new information in his Life of Shelley, where he published extracts from letters by Keats and his friend Joseph Severn.

Thomas Medwin began his biography of Percy Shelley in 1845, corresponding with relatives and friends in England, including Percy Florence Shelley, the poet's son, and in 1846 requesting information from Mary Shelley.

Thomas Medwin returned to Heidelberg from a visit to London and Horsham in time for the 1848 Revolution that swept through Germany.

Thomas Medwin continued to work there, producing some poetry and translations for his host, Justinus Kerner, to whom in 1854 he published a poem.

Thomas Medwin returned to Heidelberg the same year and published a further poetry volume, The Nugae.

Thomas Medwin returned finally to England in 1865 and began rewriting his "Life of Shelley", although the revision exists only in handwritten form.

Thomas Medwin's legacy tends to raise more questions than answers.

The few writers to highlight Thomas Medwin concentrate on his popular writings on Shelley and Byron, but his legacy includes numerous translations from Greek, Latin, Italian, German, Portuguese and Spanish.

Thomas Medwin's poetry remains neglected, with little critical comment available since their publication.

Thomas Medwin introduced many German writers to the English-speaking world, notably the poets Karl Gutzkow, Ludwig Tieck and Ludwig Achim von Arnim.