Description

Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832-1914) was an English critic and poet. He is now best remembered as the friend and minder of Algernon Charles Swinburne, whom he rescued from alcoholism. Walter Theodore Watts was born at St. Ives in what was then Huntingdonshire. He added his mother's name of Dunton to his surname in 1897. He was originally educated as a naturalist, and saw much of the East Anglian Gypsies, of whose superstitions and folk-lore he made careful study. Abandoning natural history for the law, he qualified as a solicitor and went to London, where he practiced for some years, giving his spare time to his chosen pursuit of literature. He contributed regularly to the Examiner from 1874 and to the Athenaeum from 1875 until 1898, being for more than twenty years the principal critic of poetry in the latter journal. He wrote widely for other publications and contributed several articles to Encyclopedia Britannica, of which the most significant was that on Poetry in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. In that article he explored the first principles of poetry.