The Complete Works of Henry Kirke White, of Nottingham, Late of St. John's College, Cambridge. With an Account of His life

420 pp. A once-volume compilation of White's poetry, published a few years after his five-volume Remains, which was also edited by Southey. Henry Kirke White (21 March 1785 – 19 October 1806) was an English poet and hymn-writer. He died at the young age of 21. White was born in Nottingham, the son of a butcher, a trade for which he was himself intended. However, he was greatly attracted to book-learning. By age seven, he was giving reading lessons (unbeknownst to the rest of the family, being offered after the household were abed) to a family servant.[1] After being briefly apprenticed to a stocking-weaver, he was articled to a lawyer, George Coldham. While in this position, he excelled in studying Latin and Greek.[2] When his health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, his employers gave him leave of absence for a month. He chose to live in Wilford at the crossroads, opposite Wilford House between 1804 and 1805. He drew inspiration for much of his poetry from Wilford and the surrounding area. Through the efforts of his friends, he was able to enter St John's College, Cambridge,[6][7] having spent a year beforehand with a private tutor, the Rev. Lorenzo Grainger, at Winteringham, Lincolnshire. Close application to study induced a serious illness, consumption was the disease, according to Sir Harris Nicholas's memoir, to which he ultimately became a victim, and to which White made many allusions in his poems and letters. His Remains, with his letters (which along with White's poems contain many allusions to himself that they may almost be considered an autobiography[14]) and an account of his life, were edited (5 vols., 1807–1822) by Robert Southey.[15] See prefatory notices by Sir Harris Nicolas to his Poetical Works (new ed., 1866) in the Aldine Press British poets; by Harry Kirke Swann in the volume of selections (1897) in the Canterbury Poets; and by John Drinkwater to the edition in the "Muses' Library." See also John Thomas Godfrey and J. Ward, The Homes and Haunts of Henry Kirke White (1908). Lord Byron said of White in a tributary eulogy 'while life was in its spring, thy young muse just waved her joyous wing'. White's complete works were published in 1923.--Wikipedia