Biography Thomas Moore

Poet Biography

Although Moore was an Irish Catholic and the son of a Dublin grocer, Moore became the fashionable versifier of Regency England. His Irish Melodies, published between 1807 and 1834 with accompanying music (some of the tunes by Moore himself), were an immense success, and for many years his wit, charm, liberalism, and singing voice made him a brilliant figure in literary and social circles, especially among the aristocratic Whig reformers. The same qualities made him one of Byron's closest friends.

He wrote numerous satires, lampoons, and prose pieces. He is chiefly remembered, however, for the Oriental verse romance Lalla Rookh (1817), which achieved a great European success; his fine Life of Byron (1830); and for a handful of songs--most of them in the tradition of amatory gallantry that goes back to the seventeenth century Cavaliers-- that have one their way into the repertory that is sung around the piano on a social evening.