The Author

Edward Young, English poet and dramatist, was born at Upham in Hampshire on July 3rd, 1683. He was educated at Winchster College and at New College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. After a disappointing political career he took holy orders about 1724. In 1728 he became a royal chaplain, and in 1730 he obtained the college living of Welwyn, where he spent the rest of his life. He achieved great renown for a Christian apologetic inspired by the deaths of his wife and stepdaughter, his long poem «The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality» (1742-45). It was translated into numerous languages and was influential, both in England and on the Continent. In France it became a classic of the romantic school and in Germany it inspired the «Sturm-und-Drang» movement. Young died at Welwyn in Hertfordshire on April 5th 1765.

Edward Young

The Works

Poem on the Last Day (1713)

Busiris, King of Egypt (tragedy, 1719)

The Revenge (tragedy, 1721)

The Universial Passion/The Love of Fame (satires, 1726)

The Instalment (poem to Sir R. Walpole, 1726)

Cynthio (1727)

Ocean (ode, 1728)

On Lyrick Poetry (1728)   >>> Rudolf Brandmeyer

A Vindication of Providence, a sermon (1728)

An Apology for Punch, a sermon (1729)

Imperium Pelagi, a Naval Lyrick (1730)

Two Epistles to Mr Pope concerning the Authors of the Age (1730)

A Sea-Piece (1733)

The Foreign Address, or The Best Argument for Peace (ode, 1734)

The Complaint or Night-Thoughts (poem, 1742-45)

The Brothers (play, 1753)

The Centaur not Fabulous; in Five Letters to a Friend (1755)

An Argument ... for the Truth of His [Christ's] Religion, a Sermon preached before the King (1758)

Conjectures on Original Composition (1759)   >>> University of Toronto Libraries

Resignation (poem, 1762)

Appendix

The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 1 (Internet Archive)

The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 (Project Gutenberg)

Night-Thoughts, The Universial Passion (German translations 1768)

Sources/Colophon