The major works of the English poet Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) are a group of poems that he claimed had been written by Thomas Rowley, a 15th-century priest.

Thomas Chatterton, born in Bristol on Nov. 20, 1752, was the posthumous son of a schoolmaster. In 1727 his father had acquired many 15th-century parchments, and in these documents Chatterton later pretended to find the poems and records of Thomas Rowley and his circle.

In 1760 Chatterton was enrolled in Colston's Hospital School, a charity school restricted to teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, and the principles of the Church of England. The narrowness of this education was somewhat relieved by the influence of the junior master, Thomas Phillips, who encouraged the older boys to read history and poetry and to write. According to Chatterton's sister, "he was more cheerful after he began to write poetry," when he was about 10 years old. His first published verses appeared...