Bibliography

Godshalk, William Leigh. "Prior's Copy of Spenser's 'Works' 1679." The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 61, No. 1 (January-March, 1967): 52-5.

Examines the marginalia and underlinings in Prior's volume of Spenser's Works.

Wright, H. Bunker. "Ideal Copy and Authoritative Text: The Problem of Prior's Poems on Several Occasions (1718)." Modern Philology XLIX, No. 4 (May, 1952): 234-41.

Discusses the findings of an exhaustive comparison of different copies of Poems on Several Occasions and explains why most are imperfect.

Wright, H. Bunker and P. J. Croft. "Matthew Prior's Last Manuscript: 'Predestination'." The British Library Journal 11, No. 2 (Autumn, 1985): 99-112.

Discusses the discovery of Prior's own manuscript of "Predestination." The article reproduces several pages of the manuscript in Prior's handwriting.

Biography

Bickley, Francis. The Life of Matthew Prior. 1914. Reprint. Folcraft, Penn.: Folcroft Press, 1970, 295 p.

The first full-length biography of Prior. Prior's literary career is only briefly discussed.

Eves, Charles Kenneth. Matthew Prior: Poet and Diplomatist. 1939. Reprint. New York: Octagon, 1971, 436 p.

Critically acclaimed as finest Prior biography.

Johnson, Samuel. "Prior." In his Lives of the English Poets, 2: 180-211. Edited by George Birkbeck Hill. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.

Classic biographical sketch of Prior, including some critical commentary.

Legg, L. G. Wickham. Matthew Prior. A Study of His Public Career and Correspondence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921, 348 p.

The standard study of Prior's public life.

Wright, H. Bunker. "Prior Knowledge." The Scriblerian VI, No. 2 (Spring, 1974): 68-70.

Discusses the merits of three twentieth-century biographies: by Francis Bickley, L. G. Wickham Legg, and Charles Kenneth Eves.

Criticism

Croft, P. J. "'Mr. Prior' and Alexander Pope." The Review of English Studies XXXIII, No. 129 (February, 1982): 52-8.

Examines a four-line epigram and a couplet associated with Prior and Pope. The critic disputes the contention that Prior authored the epigram and uses it to support an argument for adding the couplet to Pope's unofficial verse canon.

Doughty, Oswald. "The Poet of the 'Familiar Style'." English Studies VII, No. 1-6 (1925): 5-10.

Considers William Cowper's praise of Prior and the merit of several of Prior's verses.

Jack, Ian. "The 'Choice of Life' in Johnson and Matthew Prior." The Journal of English and Germanic Philology XLIX, No. 4 (October, 1950): 523-30.

Offers evidence that Samuel Johnson was heavily influenced by both the substance and style of Prior's Solomon when he wrote both Rasselas and The Vanity of Human Wishes.

Kline, Richard B. "Matthew Prior and 'Dear Will Nuttley': An Addition to the Canon." Philological Quarterly XLVII, No. 2 (April, 1968): 157-63.

Provides background for a character sketch Prior incorporated in a letter. The text of the letter is included.

Meier, T. K. "Prior's Adaptation of 'The Nutbrown Maid'." Moderna Sprak LXVIII, No. 4 (1974): 331-36.

Examines the extent to which Prior's Henry and Emma succeeds as an adaptation of the folk ballad "The Nutbrown Maid."

Rippy, Frances Mayhew. "Matthew Prior as the Last Renaissance Man." In Studies in Medieval, Renaissance, American Literature, 120-31. Edited by Betsy F. Colquitt. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1971.

Claims Prior "embodied in himself and in his writings many of the qualities which still seem to us peculiarly Renaissance.…" The author uses common sources to demonstrate Prior's indebtedness to Greek and Latin models.

Williams, Arthur S. "Panegyric Decorum in the Reigns of William III and Anne." The Journal of British Studies XXI, No. 1, (Fall, 1981): 56-67.

Contends that Prior broke from the "conventions of Whig panegyric as his political sympathies shifted toward an extreme Tory faction.…" The essay offers a critical examination of Prior's heroic verse.

Wright, H. Bunker. "Matthew Prior and Elizabeth Singer." The Philological Quarterly XXIV, No. I (January, 1945): 71-82.

Analyzes Prior's relationship with Elizabeth Singer. Nine letters from Prior to Singer are examined and form the basis of the study.

Wright, H. Bunker and Monroe K. Spears. Introduction to The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, Volume I, xxvii-liii. Edited by Bunker and Spears. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959.

Describes the three major collections of Prior manuscripts, the criteria used by the editors to determine the authenticity of questionable works, lists principal collected editions, and discusses the history of Prior's canon.

Additional coverage of Prior's life and work is contained in the following sources published by The Gale Group: Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, Vol. 4, and Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 95.