Geoffrey Whitney

Jameson Kısmet Bell (Bogaziçi University)

Ed. by J A Roe, University of York
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.03: English Writing and Culture: Renaissance (Elizabethan and Jacobean periods) , 1485-1625.
Vol. editors: William M. Hamlin (Washington State University), J A Roe (University of York), Virginia Mason Vaughan (Clark University), Ema Vyroubalova (Trinity College Dublin)

Dates

Born 1548
Died 1601
Activity 1585-1601

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Writer / Author

Resources

Whitney's Works

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Geoffrey Whitney (1548-1601) of Cheshire is primarily known as brother to poet Isabella Whitney and as the author of “A Choice of Emblems”, the first emblem book to appear in English (1586). He was born in or around 1548 as one of six children, four sisters and one older brother, and died in London around 1601.

Whitney spent his childhood in the township of Coole Pilate on a manor farm in the parish of Acton near Nantwich. His father, also Geoffrey Whitney, was cousin to Robert Whitney, the latest to inherit a modest estate that first came into the family in the fourteenth century. The younger Whitney dedicated his emblem book to a “Ad. D. H. Wh., patruelis mei F.”, presumably Hugh Whitney, his cousin and son of Robert Whitney. Though there was inherited wealth in the Whitneys’

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1597 words

Citation: Kısmet Bell, Jameson. "Geoffrey Whitney". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 July 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=15087, accessed 31 October 2024.]