Author: Gay, John
Biography:
GAY, John (1685-1732: ODNB)
Gay was a major writer of the eighteenth century who remained popular during the period covered by this bibliography. The conceit of Gay’s Chair, edited by Henry Lee (q.v.), is that many years after Gay’s death a concealed drawer full of manuscripts was found in a chair known to have belonged to the poet. The longest poem, “The Ladies’ Petition,” is said in the introduction to be “printed nearly verbatim from a manuscript in the hand-writing of the poet.” (That the manuscript was in Gay’s hand later became a matter of dispute.) The book prints nine other short poems possibly by Gay; all the remaining works are by Lee. Are the poems attributed to Gay actually by him? At best their authenticity is doubtful and in 1820 reviewers concluded they might be by Gay but would not add to his reputation. Gay was born in Barnstaple, Devon, on 30 June 1685 to William Gay and Katherine Hanmer. He was educated at Barnstaple grammar school before being apprenticed to a silk mercer in London to train for the drapery trade. He began publishing verse from 1708 and his growing success led eventually to an association with major London literary figures including Pope, Swift (qq.v.), and John Arbuthnot, and he was a member of the Scriblerus club. He wrote and published verse, prose, libretti, and plays. Gay achieved financial security in the 1720s with aristocratic friends and patrons. His reputation now rests on his later works, including Fables (1727) and, especially, The Beggar’s Opera which was first performed in Jan. 1728. Some controversy over Polly, which Gay described as the second part of the opera, led to his living in retirement in Burlington Gardens, London, with the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry. He suffered increasingly poor health and died on 4 Dec. 1732, leaving an estate of £6000 to be divided between his two widowed sisters. Pope was a pall bearer at the funeral on 23 Dec. when Gay was buried in Westminster Abbey. The monument to him, now in the Abbey’s triforium, includes Gay’s own epitaph: “Life is a jest; and all things show it, I thought so once; but now I know it.” (ODNB 23 Sept. 2024; John Gay and Henry Lee, Gay’s Chair [1820]; George A. Aitken, “John Gay,” Westminster Review 140 [1893], 386-403; John Underhill, The Poetical Works of John Gay [1893]; MR 92 [1820], 101-02) SR
Other Names:
- Gay