The story of Richard Savage's life is a colorful one. The early years of his life are uncertain, as is his true identity. He was said to be the illegitimate son of Anne Gerard, Countess of Macclesfield, and Richard Savage, Earl Rivers. Samuel Johnson was captivated by both the story and the man and gave him an enduring legacy by writing An account of the life of Mr. Richard Savage (1744). While Johnson wrote that Savage was born in January 1698, the true son of Earl Rivers and the Countess of Macclesfield was born the previous year. That child was born in private rooms at Fox Court, Grays Inn Lane, Holborn, with Lady Macclesfield wearing a mask throughout to avoid recognition. This birth was registered at St. Andrew's Holborn, on 16 January 1697, and the boy christened Richard Smith; Rivers is thought to have signed as his godfather giving the name of Captain John Smith.

When he was young, the illegitimate child moved among households in London: he was nursed by Mary Peglear in Hampstead, then cared for by Ann Portlock in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. Savage himself claims to have been given to a poor nurse, but then sheltered by a godmother, Mrs. Lloyd, who arranged to have him sent to school. While Lady Macclesfield (later Mrs. Brett) insisted that both of her illegitimate children had died in early childhood, Savage's claims do seem to have been supported by her nephew, Lord Tyrconnel, and Rivers's daughter, Bessy Savage, Countess of Rochford.

What we do know is that the man known as Richard Savage presented himself as Earl Rivers's son when he was charged with possessing seditious material in the wake of the Jacobite uprising in 1715. From that point, he was increasingly vocal about his origins and won the support of many within London's literary and theatrical circles. Accounts of his fantastic life were published by Giles Jacob (1719), Eliza Haywood (1724), and Aaron Hill (1724). Charles Beckingham was the reputed author of a 1727 work that detailed Savage's brush with the gallows: The life of Mr. Richard Savage, : who was condemn'd wih Mr. James Gregory, the last sessions at Old Baily, for the murder of Mr. James Sinclair, at Robinson's coffee-house at Charing-Cross. Meanwhile, Savage indulged in autobiography in his Miscellaneous Poems and Translations (1726) and his successful confessional work, The Bastard (1728). Among the more influential works to perpetuate Savage's story was Samuel Johnson's anonymously published work of 1744, An account of the life of Mr. Richard Savage. Savage’s final work was a poem that was published posthumously. London and Bristol Delineated attacked the community he had found in Bristol.

Although Savage may be known best for his colorful if unsubstantiated background, he is also known to have written political pamphlets as well as stinging personal satire. Prior to the Jacobite uprising of 1715, he wrote two pamphlets: An Ironical Panegyrick on his Pretended Majesty G--- and The Pretender. Later, he published The Convocation, or, A Battle of the Pamphlets. , followed by the satirical Authors of the Town (1725). In 1727, he returned to politics in A Poem, Sacred to the Glorious Memory of ... King George, which represents a failed bid for patronage. In 1732, he wrote Religion and Liberty: an Epistle to ... Sir Robert Walpole, followed by the anti-clerical The Progress of the Divine in 1735, which may have led to his being charged with obscenity. Again hoping for patronage, he published On the Birth-Day of the Prince of Wales (1736), A Poet's Dependence on a Statesman (1736), and, finally, Of Public Spirit in Regard to Public Works (1737).

In addition to his work as a provocateur, Savage was respected within literary and theatrical circles. He was asked to adapt for the stage Mrs. Lucy Rodd Price's translation of Calderón's La dama duende, though he did not see the production through. He did, however, revise and produce Woman is a Riddle in December 1716. In 1718, he produced Love in a Veil, which may have been another of Mrs. Price's translations of Calderón. In 1723 he wrote, produced, and appeared in the tragedy Sir Thomas Overbury. At the time he was living at the home of Lord Tyrconnel, he wrote what he considered to be his best work: The Wanderer: A Vision (1729) as well as The Triumph of Health and Mirth (1730), which he dedicated to the recovery of Lady Tyrconnel. Also in that period, he was said to have provided information for Alexander Pope's Dunciad (1728) and The Dunciad Variorum (1729). In 1729 he used the pseudonym Iscariot Hackney when satirizing his literary contemporaries in An Author to be Lett.

Savage never married, though he is reputed to be the father of Eliza Hayward's first child and was proposed as a husband for Richard Steele's illegitimate daughter. Savage's end is in keeping with his precarious existence. Alexander Pope had established a fund so that Savage could retire in Swansea. He remained there for less than two years; when he stopped in Bristol on his way back to London, he was imprisoned for a debt of £8. After suffering pain in his back and side, he died in Bristol Newgate prison on 1 August 1743. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter's, Bristol, England, at the expense of his jailor, Abel Dagge.

Summary of Savage's published works: