Thomas Leland (1722–1785) was an Irish Anglican priest, a historian, translator and academic and the author of the early Gothic novel Longsword, Earl of Salisbury: An Historical Romance, published in 1762.Leland, Thomas. Longsword, Earl of Salisbury: An Historical Romance, London, W. Johnston, 1762Power, Albert. "Thomas Leland (1722-1785)", The Green Book: Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature, no. 13, 2019, pp. 14–20. JSTOR Longsword is set in Gascony and in England, during the reign of Henry III of England.Fiona Price, Reinventing Liberty: Nation, Commerce and the British Historical Novel from Walpole to Scott. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2016. (p.28)
Life He was born in Dublin and educated at Thomas Sheridan's school A life – Thomas Leland(1722-1785) and in 1737 went to Trinity College, where he graduated with a BA in 1742. Leland was made a fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 1746. He was ordained a Church of Ireland priest in 1748, and received his Doctor of Divinity in 1757.Woods, C.J., "Leland, Thomas", Dictionary of Irish Biography
Leland translated the Orations of Demosthenes in three volumes (1756) and wrote a life of Philip of Macedon (1758). In 1761 he became professor of History and of Oratory, concentrating on Oratory as of 1762. In 1768 he became chaplain to Lord Lieutenant Viscount Townsend.Killeen, Jarlath. The Emergence of Irish Gothic Fiction, Edinburgh University Press, 2014, p. 170
He wrote an influential History of Ireland from the Invasion of Henry II in 1773. His portrait, by John Dean, is held by the National Portrait Gallery.The Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. Oxford University Press.
He served as vicar in Bray, County Wicklow, in 1773 he was appointed Vicar of St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street, in Dublin.Church of Ireland Notes, Irish Times, 4 August 2012. His son John was a barrister in Dublin.
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References
Norton, Rictor. Gothic Readings : the first wave, 1764-1840. London. Leicester University Press, 2000.
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