{{Short description|English cleric and novelist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Francis Coventry''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|ɒ|v|ən|t|r|i}}; 1725–1759) was an English Anglican cleric and novelist, best known for ''The History of Pompey the Little''.

==Life== A native of Cambridgeshire, he was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. 1748 and M.A. 1752.<ref>{{acad|CVNY744F|Coventry, Francis}}</ref> He was appointed by his kinsman the Earl of Coventry to the perpetual curacy of Edgware, and died of smallpox at Whitchurch.<ref name="DNB">{{cite DNB|wstitle=Coventry, Francis|volume=12}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Monthly Magazine: Or, British Register ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LmU3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA588|year=1808|pages=588}}</ref>

==Works== [[File:Pompey the little illustration.jpg|thumb|Illustration to ''Pompey the Little'', by John June]] Coventry was the author of:<ref name="DNB"/> *''Penshurst, a poem, inscribed to William Perry, esq., and the Hon. Mrs. Elizabeth Perry'', 1750, reprinted in vol. iv. of ''Dodsley's Miscellanies''; *the fifteenth number of the ''World'', 12 April 1753, containing ''Strictures on the Absurd Novelties introduced in Gardening''; *the satirical romance and ''roman à clef'', ''Pompey the Little, or the Adventures of a Lapdog'', 1751 (5th ed. 1773), which Lady Mary Wortley Montagu preferred to ''Peregrine Pickle''. Several characters in were intended for ladies well known in contemporary society.

==Notes== {{Reflist}}

'''Attribution''' * {{DNB|wstitle=Coventry, Francis|volume=12}}

==External links== {{commons category}} * [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/authors/pers00089.shtml Francis Coventry] at the [http://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/ Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)] * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Francis Coventry}} * {{Librivox author |id=676}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coventry, Francis}} Category:1725 births Category:1759 deaths Category:18th-century English Anglican priests Category:18th-century English male writers Category:18th-century English novelists Category:English male novelists

{{England-novelist-stub}}