Robert Bolling (poet)

Robert Bolling (August 17, 1738 – July 21, 1775) was a poet, planter and politician from the English colony of Virginia. A grandson of Robert Bolling (1646–1709), he was born in Virginia and sent to England for his education. On his return to Virginia, he studied law, but soon took over at Chellowe, a tobacco plantation in Buckingham County, Virginia inherited from his father.

Though he published at least 35 poems in English periodicals during his lifetime, more poetry than any other colonist at the time, most of his works remained in manuscript, and remain unpublished. His papers are now owned by the University of Virginia Library and the Henry E. Huntington Library. His book A Memoir of a Portion of the Bolling Family in England and Virginia was published posthumously, in 1868; it was originally written in French and translated by a descendant.

Bolling was a member of the House of Burgesses. He died in July 1775, possibly of a heart attack, in Richmond while attending the third Virginia Convention.

The cantata Virginiana by composer Gregory Spears, for vocal quartet and Baroque ensemble, is based on texts written by Bolling during his failed courtship of his cousin Anne Miller in 1760. It was completed in 2015.

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