Essay by unknown author.

[matheinste]

Hello all,

A lady from Ireland recently emailed me having visited my local history website. She was particularly interested in my in depth research into licensed prmises. She recalled that in her school days, as part of her English education, she had to read an essay entitled Tewkesbury Inns. Unforunately she could not remember the author's name. She suggested that it may have been by Hazlitt or Coleridge. I have done extenisve searches on both and have found that Hazlitt actually spent an evening at an inn, in his words "I think it was at Tewkesbury", on his journey to visit Coleridge. I can find no essay of the name in his bibliography and so have drawn a blank there.

It is of course possible that my informant was mistaken as to the name of the essay or, as is more likely, it was not by Hazlitt. A contemporary descrition of the town's inns would of course be worth its weight in gold. Does anyone here know of such an essay and if so who wrote it. Failing this, is there any evidence anywhere which might point bme in the right direction.

Thanks Andy H.

[OrphanPip]

I couldn't come up with anything relating to Tewkesbury in searches of the regular 19th century lit databases. I was able to find an anonymous novel called No Enthusiasm: A Tale of the Times from 1822, which is set in Tewkesbury, the first chapter was set in a Red Lion Inn in Tewkesbury, but that name is sufficiently generic that I can't say with any certainty the author had ever been to such an inn, or if it is an accurate account of the place at the time. The book is found on the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue database, you might need to make a trip to a library to get access to it.

[matheinste]

I couldn't come up with anything relating to Tewkesbury in searches of the regular 19th century lit databases. I was able to find an anonymous novel called No Enthusiasm: A Tale of the Times from 1822, which is set in Tewkesbury, the first chapter was set in a Red Lion Inn in Tewkesbury, but that name is sufficiently generic that I can't say with any certainty the author had ever been to such an inn, or if it is an accurate account of the place at the time. The book is found on the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue database, you might need to make a trip to a library to get access to it.

Thanks for your quick reply. The book you refer to is new to me as it does not appear in any lists of literary references to Tewkesbury. I will get in touch with my local library and see if they can get hold of it.

As you suggest, Red Lions abound and Tewkesbury has been home to at least three of them, one of which was trading by 1822 and for some years after.. Of course whether or not the opening chapter does in fact describe a non-fictional Red Lion is going to be hard to decide.

Thanks again Andy H.