SOURCE: Tracy, Clarence. “Some Uncollected Authors XXXVI: Richard Savage d. 1743.” The Book Collector 12, no. 3 (autumn 1963): 340-49.

In the following excerpt, Tracy recounts Savage's claims regarding his parentage, and offers a short summation of the editions of his poetry that were published before and after his death.

Richard Savage's extraordinary life is known to most students of English literature through the famous biography by Samuel Johnson, to say nothing of later versions of his story by novelists and playwrights. Though modern research has added fresh details to the familiar outlines, the basic mystery remains. Who was Richard Savage? From the occasion in 1715 when he identified himself before a magistrate as ‘Mr. Savage, natural son to the late Earl Rivers’, to the end of his life, he stuck to the same story and—what is more remarkable—convinced almost everybody who mattered (except the woman whom he called his mother...