Francis Coventry

English cleric and novelist

Francis Coventry (1725–1759) was an English cleric and novelist, best known for The History of Pompey the Little.

Life

A native of Cambridgeshire, he was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. 1748 and M.A. 1752.^[1] He was appointed by his kinsman the Earl of Coventry to the perpetual curacy of Edgware, and died of smallpox at Whitchurch.^[2][3]

Works

Illustration to Pompey the Little, by John June

Coventry was the author of:^[2]

• Penshurst, a poem, inscribed to William Perry, esq., and the Hon. Mrs. Elizabeth Perry, 1750, reprinted in vol. iv. of Dodsley's Miscellanies;
• the fifteenth number of the World, 12 April 1753, containing Strictures on the Absurd Novelties introduced in Gardening;
• the satirical romance and roman à clef, Pompey the Little, or the Adventures of a Lapdog, 1751 (5th ed. 1773), which Lady Mary Wortley Montagu preferred to Peregrine Pickle. Several characters in were intended for ladies well known in contemporary society.

Notes

1. "Coventry, Francis (CVNY744F)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
2. Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Coventry, Francis" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 12. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
3. The Monthly Magazine: Or, British Register ... 1808. p. 588.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Coventry, Francis". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 12. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

External links

• Francis Coventry at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)
• Works by or about Francis Coventry at Internet Archive
• Works by Francis Coventry at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)