Author: Lloyd, Hartley
Biography:
LLOYD, Hartley (fl 1834)
An elusive author—if he appeared under his real name. The internal evidence provided by his only publication, Solitary Hours, is that he was, by his own assertion, getting on in years by 1834, with a lot to look back on and not much to look forward to, and that he lived in a country setting far from cities. By inference, he was a gentleman capable of making casual reference to Latin classics. He may have lived in Devonshire: the book was printed at Ilfracombe. Scholarly enquiries for information in 1861 and 1881 apparently yielded no answers. The name seems to be unknown to the public records of birth, marriage, census, and death. He did not attend Oxford or Cambridge. A prefatory sonnet indicates that Lloyd was hoping to gain literary reputation, but the reviewers were dismissive—“easy, little lyric songs,” they said, “versified prettinesses,” “gentle elegance.” (ancestry.com 24 Jan. 2024; findmypast.com 24 Jan. 2024; N&Q 7 May 1861; The Western Antiquary May 1881, 28; GM Aug. 1834, 185-6; Metropolitan Magazine 9 [1834], 114; Lady’s Magazine [1834], 361)