Thomas Lovell Beddoes, author of Death's Jest Book (published, appropriately enough, posthumously), was the most talented of the now obscure Elizabethan Revival movement. He was the nephew of Maria Edgeworth and son of the anatomist and chemist Dr. Thomas Beddoes, founder of the Pneumatic Institution in Bristol where Sir Humphrey Davies studied the effects of nitrous oxide. He was also a friend of Erasmus Darwin, Coleridge and Southey. Dr. Beddoes aided the latter two with their drug experiments, providing them with nitrous oxide.

Beddoes first major work was The Bride's Tragedy based on a murder committed by an Oxford undergraduate.

Like his father, Beddoes studied anatomy and physiology. His poetry often treats of anatomical subjects, and there is one called Resurrection Song, which may allude to the notorious resurrection men, the body snatchers Burke and Hare whose shocking murder trial in 1828 led to Burke's sentencing to be hanged and dissected. So many students wanted to take part, there was a riot in which the windows of the dissecting room were smashed. Some students are known to have taken souvenirs of Burke's skin and had it made into book-covers.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (Caroline Lamb's aunt) was a patron of Beddoes who was also friends with William Godwin and the widowed Mary Shelley. and was much admired by Tennyson, Meredith and Browning among others. Browning was given Beddoes' manuscripts to publish; unfortunately, they were neglected and the originals are now lost.

Beddoes developed serious illness after being contaminated by a corpse, and committed suicide.