Josiah Conder (1789-1855): Started life in his father’s booksellers’ business, which he inherited and ran 1811–1819. However, he became better known as an industrious writer, editor and compiler, particularly of works on Nonconformist themes, and as owner and editor of the Eclectic Review, 1814–1837. In 1815 he married the poet Joan Elizabeth Thomas (c. 1786–1877) who wrote as ‘Eliza Thomas’. Southey admired the Associate Minstrels (1810), a collection by Conder and his friends, and arranged for some of the contributors’ work to appear in the Edinburgh Annual Register for 1810 (1812), though he was annoyed by the exclusion of Conder’s poem, ‘Reverie’. Subsequently, Conder wrote to Southey for advice about the Eclectic Review and his other publications and the two developed a regular correspondence.

Submitted by Anonymous on