Augusta Webster was very widely praised in her own time—Christina Rossetti thought her “by far the most formidable” woman poet. Her work has again come into favour, so much so that Isobel Armstrong and her co-editors of the influential anthology, Nineteenth-Century Women Poets, declare that “there can be no doubt that Augusta Webster ranks as one of the great Victorian poets.” This collection is the first edition of Webster’s poems since 1895. It is a selection of her best work, emphasizing her powerful dramatic monologues and including a substantial number of her lyrics. With an introduction and background documents that highlight the distinctiveness of her work, this edition will help to re-establish Augusta Webster as a major figure of nineteenth-century English literature.
Comments
“Augusta Webster’s powerful and witty, disarmingly casual essays incisively explore such topics as the creation of selfhood, the social constraints that mar women’s happiness, and the struggle for women’s rights. Reintroducing Webster’s writings after a century of neglect, Christine Sutphin provides generous, well-chosen selections of both poetry and prose as well as an informative introduction and useful supplementary materials. Anyone interested in Victorian poetry, women’s writing, or nineteenth-century feminism will appreciate this extremely interesting volume by an important Victorian writer.” — Dorothy Mermin, Cornell University
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Works Cited
Augusta Webster: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
WORKS
From Dramatic Studies (1866)
- Jeanne D’Arc
Sister Annunciata—
- An Anniversary
- Abbess Ursula’s Lecture
- The Snow Waste
With the Dead
By the Looking-Glass
From A Woman Sold and Other Poems (1867)
- A Woman Sold—
- Eleanor Vaughan
- Lady Boycott
- The Old Year Out and the New Year In
Too Faithful
To One of Many
To and Fro
From Portraits (first edition 1870; enlarged edition, 1893):
- Medea in Athens
Circe
The Happiest Girl in the World
A Castaway
Faded
A Soul in Prison
Tired
Coming Home
In an Almshouse
A Preacher
A Painter
An Inventor
A Dilettante
Yu-Pe-Ya’s Lute. A Chinese Tale in English Verse (1874)
From A Book of Rhyme (1881):
- Poulain the Prisoner
Not Love
English Rispetti
Mother and Daughter. An Uncompleted Sonnet Sequence (1895)
Appendix A: A Selection of Essays from A Housewife’s Opinions (1879):
- A Transcript and a Transcription
Poets and Personal Pronouns
University Degrees for Women
Protection for the Working Woman
Husband-Hunting and Match-Making
The Dearth of Husbands
An Irrepressible Army
Parliamentary Franchise for Women
Ratepayers
Appendix B: Contemporary Reviews
Review of Dramatic Studies
- from the Reader (June 2, 1866)
from the Nonconformist (June 27, 1866)
from the Athenaeum (August 11, 1866)
from the Westminster Review (October 1866)
from the Contemporary Review (December, 1866)
Review of A Woman Sold from the Saturday Review (February 9, 1867)
Review of Portraits from the Westminster Review (April 1, 1870)
- from the Nonconformist (May 11, 1870)
from the Examiner and London Review (May 21, 1870)
Review of Portraits (1893 edition) and Selections from the Verse of Augusta Webster from the Athenaeum (August 26, 1893)
Christine Sutphin a Professor of English at Central Washington University, has published widely on Victorian women writers.
