Author: Peele, George
Biography:
PEELE, George (1556-96: ODNB)
Peele is a “prior” author who owes his place in this bibliography to the antiquarian literary movement of the period, but needs only a brief headnote. His poem about the anniversary celebrations for Elizabeth I in 1595, previously unpublished, was printed for the first time from manuscript by its owner, William Stevenson Fitch of Ipswich (1792-1859), who is tersely identified by ODNB as an “antiquary and thief.” When he brought out Peele’s Works in 3 vols. (1828, 1839), the literary scholar Alexander Dyce (1798-1869) reprinted this version but was subsequently able to collate the text with the ms and to explain the circumstances of publication. George Peele was baptised in London on 25 July 1556, the son of James Peele and his first wife Anne. His father was responsible for city pageants and after 1562 was also Clerk of the recently founded charity school Christ’s Hospital. George was educated at the school and at Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1577, MA 1579). In Oxford in 1580 he married Anne (bapt. 1564, surname either Cooke or Christian) and then moved to London where he embarked on a moderately successful career as a poet, playwright, and creator of pageants. The couple had two daughters; his wife may have died in 1587 but biographical evidence is murky. Anglorum Feriae was one of Peele’s occasional poems, designed to win the approval of patrons. Neither patrons nor theatre managers provided well for Peele towards the end of his life, however, when he suffered from a lingering illness. He died in London and was buried at St. James, Clerkenwell, on 9 Nov. 1596. (ODNB [Peele, Fitch] 10 Sept. 2023; Dramatic and Poetical Works of Robert Greene and George Peele, ed. A. Dyce [1861], 592) HJ