Thomas Creech

Thomas Creech (1659 – found dead 19 July 1700) was an English translator of classical works, and headmaster of Sherborne School.

Creech's translation of one of the idylls of Theocritus is inscribed to his "chum Mr. Hody of Wadham College", and another is dedicated to Robert Balch, who at a later date was his "friend and tutor".

[2] There were printed after his death two tracts: His portrait, three-quarters oval in a clerical habit, was given by Humphrey Bartholomew to the picture gallery at Oxford.

A second edition appeared in the following year with extra commendatory verses in Latin and English, some of which bore the names of Nahum Tate, Thomas Otway, Aphra Behn, Richard Duke, and Edmund Waller; and when Dryden published his translations from Theocritus, Lucretius, and Horace, he made flattering comments on Creech's work in the preface.

An edition appeared in 1714 containing translations of verses previously omitted and numerous notes from another hand designed to set forth a complete system of Epicurean philosophy.

It appeared in 1695 with the title 'Titi Lucretii Cari de rerum natura libri sex, quibus interpretationem et notas addidit Thomas Creech,' and was dedicated to his friend Christopher Codrington.

H. A. J. Munro in his edition of Lucretius[3] wrote of Creech as borrowing annotations mainly from Lambinus, attributing the popularity of the work to their clarity and brevity.