Cowper

Cowper by Goldwin Smith is a literary biography that examines the life, temperament, and work of the English poet William Cowper. Rather than treating Cowper as a distant monument, Smith presents him as a deeply human writer shaped by illness, religious feeling, friendship, and the emotional shocks of private life.

The book will appeal to readers who enjoy biography mixed with criticism, especially when the subject is a poet whose work grows out of personal struggle. Cowper offers a useful guide to eighteenth-century literary culture and to the quiet intensity that made Cowper's verse and letters matter to later readers. For readers building a classic bookshelf, it offers a clear, readable introduction that links the work's themes to its lasting appeal in modern reading, classrooms, and discussion.