Edward Kimber

Edward Kimber (1719–1769) was an English novelist, journalist and compiler of reference works.

Life

He was son of Isaac Kimber;^[1] and in early life apprentice to a bookseller, John Noon of Cheapside.^[2] He made a living by compilation and editorial work for booksellers.^[1]

Kimber spent the years 1742 to 1744 in British North America, and drew on his travels in subsequent writing.^[3] In 1745–6 he published a series of Itinerant Observations in America in The London Magazine, at that point edited by his father.^[4]

Works

Kimber wrote:^[1]

• A Relation, or Journal, of a Late Expedition to the Gates of St. Augustine, on Florida (1744). Kimber had served in the militia of James Oglethorpe, and participated in a raid in 1743 that was a sequel to the 1740 siege of St. Augustine, Florida.^[5]
• The Life and Adventures of Joe Thompson, a Narrative founded on fact, written by himself [anon.], 2 vols., London, 1750; other editions, 1751, 1775, 1783. A French translation appeared in 1762. A "ramble novel", it sold well at the time, and was then condemned to neglect.^[6]
• The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson (1754).^[5] A sentimental novel, it was based on a real-life narrative Kimber had heard in Georgia.^[7][8] Kimber denounced slavery, but is now found to be equivocal on the related issue, in the American context, of white supremacy.^[9]
• The Life and Adventures of James Ramble (1754)^[5]
• The Juvenile Adventures of David Ranger (1756)^[5]
• The Life, Extraordinary Adventures, Voyages, and Surprizing Escapes of Capt. Neville Frowde, of Cork (1758)^[5]
• The Happy Orphans (1759), translation from the French.^[5] The French original of 1754 was itself imitated from the Fortunate Foundlings of Eliza Haywood.^[10]
• Maria: The Genuine Memoirs of an Admired Lady of Rank and Fortune (1764)^[5]
• The Generous Briton: or, the Authentic Memoirs of William Goldsmith (1765)^[5]
• The Peerage of England, London, 1766; 2nd edit. 1769.
• The Peerage of Scotland, London, 1767.
• The Peerage of Ireland, London, 1768.
• The Extinct Peerage of England, London, 1769.

He also wrote memoirs of his father, together with a poem to his memory, prefixed to Isaac Kimber's Sermons, 1756. With Richard Johnson he edited and continued Thomas Wooton's Baronetage of England, 3 vols., London, 1771.^[1]

Notes

1. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1892). "Kimber, Edward" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 31. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
2. Charles N. Baldwin (1842). A Universal Biographical Dictionary. Grigg & Elliot. p. 268.
3. Herrie, Jeffrey. "Kimber, Edward". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15547. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
4. Kevin J. Hayes (6 February 2008). The Oxford Handbook of Early American Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 527. ISBN 978-0-19-518727-4.
5. Edward Kimber (13 November 2008). The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Anderson. Broadview Press. pp. 35–6. ISBN 978-1-55111-703-4.
6. Catherine E. Ingrassia; Jeffrey S. Ravel (30 March 2005). Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture. JHU Press. p. 285. ISBN 978-0-8018-8192-3.
7. Gary L. Ebersole (1995). Captured by Texts: Puritan to Postmodern Images of Indian Captivity. University of Virginia Press. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-8139-1607-1.
8. Eve Tavor Bannet (7 July 2011). Transatlantic Stories and the History of Reading, 1720-1810: Migrant Fictions. Cambridge University Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-139-49761-9.
9. George Boulukos (10 April 2008). The Grateful Slave: The Emergence of Race in Eighteenth-Century British and American Culture. Cambridge University Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-521-88571-3.
10. Betty A. Schellenberg (10 June 2005). The Professionalization of Women Writers in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge University Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-521-85060-5.

Attribution

  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1892). "Kimber, Edward". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 31. London: Smith, Elder & Co.