In an 1822 letter to his Cambridge friend Derwent Coleridge, Winthrop Praed offered a lighthearted account of his literary efforts: "Having been favoured by Nature with a long face, a short purse, and two elder Brothers, I find no way of making myself popular in the circle in which she has placed me, except versifying. And this is the end and upshot of every two lines which, in print or in Manuscript, I have stitched together." Claiming that only by writing poems could he endear himself to fashionable society, Praed revealed not only the social message but also the social motive of his poetry. It is for his vers de société that he was acclaimed in his own time and continues to be of interest to scholars of the nineteenth century today.

Winthrop Mackworth Praed was born in London on 26 July 1802, the fourth child of William...