Thomas Forbes Kelsall (fl. 1824-67) was a solicitor by trade. He was a friend of Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-49), and at Beddoes' request became his literary executor after his death in 1849. Kelsall published Beddoes' great work Death's jest book in 1850. He followed this in 1851 with Poems of the late Thomas Lovell Beddoes, to which a memoir was prefixed.

See Beddoes' entry in the Dictionary of National Biography for further information.

Transcripts of Death's jest book (transcribed in 1849-50), used by the printer for the first edition, and some miscellaneous verse.

Bought by C.H. Wilkinson from Kelsall's grand-daughters in 1920.

Bequeathed to the Library by C.H. Wilkinson in 1960.

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card (for admissions procedures see http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/admissions/).

M. Clapinson and T.D. Rogers, Summary Catalogue of Post-Medieval Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford. Acquisitions 1916-1975. (Oxford, 1991), vol. II, nos. 46407-8.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes Death's jest book, London, 1850; Poems posthumous and collected, London 1851; and The works ed. H.W. Donnner, Oxford, 1935.

English literature | 19th century

Beddoes | Thomas Lovell | 1803-1849 | poet and physiologist

Kelsall | Thomas Forbes | fl 1824-1867 | friend and literary executor of Thomas Lovell Beddoes