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Elijah Fenton (1683 - 1730) was a poet and translator, educated at Cambridge, for a
time acted as secretary to the Earl of Orrery in Flanders, and was then Master of Sevenoaks Grammar School. In 1707 he published a book of poems. He is
best known, however, as the assistant of Alexander Pope in his translation of the Odyssey, of which he Englished the first, fourth, nineteenth, and twentieth books, catching the manner of his master so completely that it is hardly possible to distinguish between their work; while thus engaged he published (1723) a successful tragedy, Marianne. His latest contributions to literature were a Life of Milton, and an editor of Waller's Poems (1729).
- This article is originally from A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.
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