Thomas Lodge

Abbreviations

Gosse

The Complete Works of Thomas Lodge, [ed. Edmund Gosse], 4 vols, Hunterian Club (Glasgow, 1883; reprinted New York, 1963).

Introduction

Letters

The only known examples of the secretary and italic handwriting of Thomas Lodge are a number of letters, which throw light on his personal, financial and literary life, as well as including moral exhortations and advice on keeping a commonplace book. The principal series addressed to William Trumbull (*LoT 18-29, *LoT 31) is largely recorded and the letters summarised, not always accurately, in HMC, 75, Downshire II (1936) and Downshire IV (1940). Before they were catalogued for the Trumbull sale at Sotheby's, 14 December 1989, lot 26, an overall view of them had appeared in Joseph W. Houppert, ‘Thomas Lodge's Letters to William Trumbull’, Renaissance News, 18 (1965), 117-23. In addition, a single letter addressed to Lodge by a correspondent can be recorded: one by W. Tenison ‘To the worshipfull his Louinge frende mr Thomas Lodge Doctor in Physick’, 9 March 1605[/6], in the National Archives, Kew (SP 14/19/39).

Miscellaneous Works

The other entries below include a few extracts from Lodge's works found in miscellanies and songbooks, and also two scribal copies of his medical handbook The Poore Mans Talentt (LoT 13-14), as well as a contemporary copy of one of his prescriptions (LoT 30).

Peter Beal