Croft, Herbert
Entry updated 28 July 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1751-1816) UK barrister, lexicographer and author, best known for a nonfantastic roman à clef, Love and Madness (1780). He is of sf interest for the Kilkhampton series of Satirical sketches beginning with The Abbey of Kilkhampton; Or, Monumental Records for the Year 1980 (1780) [for further details see Checklist below]. Not specifically tied to this sequence, The Wreck of Westminster Abbey, Alias the Year 2000 (1788 chap) [for subtitle see Checklist below] continues in the same vein. These volumes are all published with various assertions of anonymity, as common in the eighteenth century; but the author's identity does not seem to have been assiduously concealed. The sketches of his contemporaries, inspired by (entirely imagined) tombstone inscriptions from the perspective of a century later, make only moderate use of the Near-Future angle of vision so gained, nor does The Wreck of Westminster Abbey portray the destruction of London. Croft's association late in his life with Charles Nodier did not produce work yet identified as being of interest. [JC]
see also: Ruins and Futurity.
Sir Herbert Croft
born Dunster Park, Berkshire: 1 November 1751
died Paris: 26 April 1816
works (highly selected)
series
Kilkhampton
- The Abbey of Kilkhampton; Or, Monumental Records for the Year 1980: Faithfully Transcribed from the Original Inscriptions, Which are Still Perfect, and Appear to Be Drawn up in a Stile Devoid of Fulsome Panegyric, or Unmerited Detraction; and Compiled with a View to Ascertain, with Precision, the Manners which Prevailed in Great Britain during the last Fifty Years of the Eighteenth Century (London: Printed for G Kearsly, 1780) [chap: Kilkhampton: hb/]
- The Abbey of Kilkhampton; Or, Monumental Records for the Year 1980: The Third Edition, with Considerable Additions (London: Printed for G Kearsly, 1780) [chap: exp vt of the above: Kilkhampton: hb/]
- The Second Part of the Abbey of Kilhampton; Or, Monumental Records for the Year 1980: Faithfully Transcribed from the Original Inscriptions, Which are Still Perfect, and Appear to Be Drawn up in a Stile Devoid of Fulsome Panegyric, or Unmerited Detraction (London: Printed for G Kearsly, 1780) [chap: continuation of the above: Kilkhampton: hb/]
- The Abbey of Kilkhampton: An Improved Edition (London: Printed for G Kearsly, 1788) [not determined if this comprises both parts above in one volume: Kilkhampton: hb/]
individual titles
- The Wreck of Westminster Abbey, Alias the Year 2000,Alias the Ordeal of Sepulchral Candour: Being a Selection from the Monumental Records of the most Conspicuous Personages who Flourished towards the Latter End of the Eighteenth Century (London: Printed for Charles Stalker, 1788) [chap: hb/]
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