Francis Beaumont, the third son of a justice of the Common Pleas, was born into a distinguished Leicestershire family with Catholic affinities, probably at Grace Dieu, site of a dissolved priory. At the age of 12 in 1597 he was admitted to Broadgates Hall, Oxford, with his two bothers, Henry and John; he took no degree there, and in 1600 went on, as earlier generations of his family had done, to the Inner Temple, where, like many other well-connected young men of the time, he developed interests in poetry and drama rather than the law. His first literary production seems to have been the verses signed F. B. prefaced to his brother John's mock-heroic poem The Metamorphosis of Tobacco in 1602, soon followed by his precociously brill

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First published 13 June 2001

Citation: Clark, Sandra. "Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher". The Literary Encyclopedia. 13 June 2001.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=315, accessed 20 November 2009.]