Howard Staunton - Life

Life

Most information about Staunton's early life is ultimately based on claims he made. Record of his birth or baptism has never been found. The chess historian H.J.R. Murray summarized the information that he "gleaned" from various sources: Staunton was born in 1810, reputedly the natural son of Frederick Howard, fifth Earl of Carlisle; he was neglected in youth, receiving little or no education; although he spent some time in Oxford, he was never a member of the University; when he came of age he inherited a few thousand pounds, which he soon squandered; in later life Staunton often used to tell how he had once played Lorenzo in the Merchant of Venice, with the famous English actor Edmund Kean playing Shylock.

Read more about this topic:  Howard Staunton

Famous quotes containing the word life:

    The intellectual life may be kept clean and healthful, if man will live the life of nature, and not import into his mind difficulties which are none of his.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard to take being on the top—or on the bottom. I guess I’m something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things.... Life is one crisis after another.
    Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)

    Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)