Francis Thompson was born a hundred years ago. His life was a mixture of depravity and saintliness, laudanum and poetry. As a medical student he had deceived his father for years, going from home each day into Manchester and spending the time in museums or taking laudanum or idling on park seats. Wilfrid Meynell rescued him from sordid dejection in London of the 1880s; The Hound of Heaven made a reputation which held him highest as a Catholic poet, until Gerard Manley Hopkins was published.
J.C. Reid has written a fascinating critical biography (originally published in 1959), placing the man and his work in a perspective which was acceptable in the twentieth century. His childhood and ‘student’ days, the London period of poetry, the charm and maddening eccentricity of his years under the protection of the Meynells, the effect of laudanum and tuberculosis, his touching friendship with Patmore—these form much of the story, which is the first serious biography of Francis Thompson.