Author: Melmoth, Sydney
Biography:
MELMOTH, Sydney (fl 1801-27)
Melmoth left so few traces that we have to piece together an account of him mainly by inference from his title-pages and the contents of his publications. In 1801, in conjunction with a provincial printer in the north of England, he brought out a quite significant anthology mainly of contemporary poetry--"Peter Pindar," Coleridge, Southey, Charlotte Smith, etc.--with several further editions to 1807. Thomas Bewick provided woodcuts. He is identified variously as "S. M.," "S. Melmoth," "Sidney Melmoth, Esq.," and "Sydney Melmoth." ("Esq." suggests that he was not a graduate of a university: he would have cited his degree.) There was a companion anthology of prose (1805) and then nothing more until 1827, when he produced a volume of original poetry in Boston, including some on the American themes of "migration" and Bunker Hill. Melmoth must have emigrated not long after delivering the prose volume, for one of the Boston periodicals in 1806 announced a forthcoming Philadelphia edition of William Cooke's Elements of Dramatic Criticism (of 1775) with "remarks" by Melmoth. No such edition appeared and it is not known what became of Melmoth after 1827. (Monthly Anthology, and Boston Review 3 [1806] 612)
Other Names:
- Sidney Melmoth