Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Summary

Francis Thompson was born in 1859 in Preston and grew to manhood in Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire. After six years registered as a medical student at Owens College, Manchester, he set off for London to retrace the footsteps of Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859). His early experience in London followed closely that of the earlier English Opium Eater until he was rescued by Wilfrid Meynell (1852–1948) who recognized his nascent literary flair. Thompson's poetry earned him respect and reputation and his prose brought him a reasonable income, but he never weaned himself from laudanum and he died of tuberculosis in 1907. Not every truant is honoured by a lapidary inscription in his alma mater, even though he may be overlooked in an arbitrary census.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Moynihan

. Truants. The Story of Some Who Deserted Medicine Yet Triumphed. London: The Keynes Press, British Medical Association, 1983, extended Linacre Lecture first published by Cambridge University Press, 1933

Meynell

. The Life of Francis Thompson. London: Burns & Oates Ltd., 1913:8–10

Walsh

. Strange Harp, Strange Symphony: The Life of Francis Thompson. London: WH Allen, 1968:10

Meynell

(op. cit. Ref. 2) pp. 15–34

Walsh

(op. cit. Ref. 3) pp. 18–33

Meynell

(op. cit. Ref. 2) pp. 46–8

Ibid.: p. 49

De Quincey

. The Confessions of an English Opium Eater. London: Grant Richards, 1822, reprinted, 1903:249–50

Berridge

. Opium and the People: Opium Use in 19th Century England. London: Free Association Books, 1979

10.

De Quincey

(op. cit. Ref. 8) pp. ix–x

11.

Ibid.: p. 214

12.

Meynell

(op. cit. Ref. 2) pp. 57–84

13.

Ibid.: pp. 85–92

14.

Thompson

. The Works of Francis Thompson, (ed) Wilfrid

Meynell

, London: Burns & Oates, vol III. Prose, not dated, c. 1913:52–65

15.

Walsh

(op. cit. Ref. 3) pp. 41–54

16.

Thompson

. The Poems of Francis Thompson. London: Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford, 1937:19–59 (p. 30)

17.

Walsh

(op. cit. Ref. 3) pp. 50–54

18.

De Quincey

(op.cit. Ref. 8) p. 183

19.

Ibid.: pp. 165–7

20.

Meynell

(op. cit. Ref. 2) pp. 85–90

21.

Ibid.: pp. 94–5

22.

Walsh

(op. cit. Ref. 3) pp. 87

23.

Thompson

(op. cit. Ref. 16) pp. 3–5

24.

Thompson

(op. cit. Ref. 14) pp. 1–37, especially 7–9

25.

Walsh

(op. cit. Ref. 3) pp. 90

26.

Meynell

(op. cit. Ref. 2) p. 99

27.

Psalmist. psalm 139 verses 1–10 p. 475

28.

Thomson

(op. cit. Ref. 16) pp. 89–94, 89

29.

Psalmist. (op. cit. Ref. 27) verses 11–12 and 23–24: p. 475

30.

31.

Walsh

(op. cit. Ref. 3) pp. 93–103

32.

33.

34.

Meynell

(op. cit. Ref. 2) pp. 111–33

35.

36.

37.

38.

Meynell

(op. cit. Ref. 2) pp. 135–79

39.

Walsh

(op. cit. Ref. 3) pp. 136–45

40.

Ibid.: pp. 152–76

41.

42.

Walsh

(op. cit. Ref. 3) pp. 179–83

43.

Ibid.: pp. 190

44.

Meynell

(op. cit. Ref. 2) pp. 346–9

45.

Broadman

. Between Heaven and Charing Cross: The Life of Francis Thompson. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1988: 257

46.

Walsh

(op. cit. Ref. 3) pp. 213–217

47.

Thompson

(op. cit. Ref. 16) pp. 5–8

48.

Leo

XII

. Rerum Novarum. London, Catholic Truth Society, 1891: paragraph 8

49.

50.

Browne

. The Works of Sir Thomas Browne. (ed) Simon

Wilkin

, London, George Bell: 1893, 1901 and 1903; III: 44

51.

52.

53.

Moynihan

(op. cit. Ref. 1) pp. 39–41

54.

Hughes

. The medical education of Sir Thomas Browne: a seventeenth-century student of Montpllier, Padua and Leiden. Journal of Medical Biography 2001;9:70–6

55.

Johnson

. Life of Sir Thomas Browne in Works (op. cit. Ref. 49) pp. ix–xxxvi

56.

Meynell

. Plate facing (op. cit. Ref. 2) p: 344

Francis Thompson (1859–1907): a medical truant and his troubled heart

Abstract

Summary

Get full access to this article

References