tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-240644142024-03-16T18:51:39.957+00:00Scrapblog: a Writer from the South-WestNotes and thoughts dreaming through the web-mirrorJulie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-65222284339425096152019-02-09T12:48:00.000+00:002019-02-09T12:48:13.088+00:00Her-Story at Hartland<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>This blog has moved</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Please follow</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>see below</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>A-Z of Devon Places and Devon Women Writers</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><a href="https://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.com/2017/04/h-her-story-at-hartland.html" target="_blank">Her-Story at Hartland</a></u></b></span></div>
<u><span style="color: #000120;"></span></u><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Women Writing on the Devon Land</a></span></b></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-75424633109134599592019-02-09T10:17:00.005+00:002019-02-09T10:17:36.145+00:00G is Going to Gittisham<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b style="font-size: x-large;"><u>This blog has moved!</u></b></div>
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<b style="font-size: x-large;"><u>see below</u></b></div>
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<b style="font-size: x-large;"><u>A - Z of Devon Places and Women Writers</u></b></div>
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<b style="font-size: x-large;"><u><br /></u></b></div>
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<br /><br /><a href="https://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.com/2017/03/g-is-going-to-gittisham.html"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>G is Going to Gittisham</b></span></a></div>
<u><span style="color: #000120;"></span></u><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-size: large;"></span><b></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Women Writing on the Devon Land</a></span></b></div>
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© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-60633714577392655912019-02-09T10:11:00.001+00:002019-02-09T10:12:29.794+00:00F for All, or Which ... Not Farringdon, Fremington, Feniton, Frithelstock but FILLEIGH<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><u><br /></u></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Please follow on</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><u><br /></u></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><u>A-Zof Devon Places & Women Writers</u></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.com/2017/03/f-for-all-or-which-not-farringdon.html"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-size: large;">F for All, or Which ... Not Farringdon, Fremington, Feniton, Frithelstock but FILLEIGH</span></a></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Writing Women on the Devon Landscape</a></span></div>
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© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-56119449929858420942017-03-11T12:31:00.002+00:002017-10-21T19:40:52.097+01:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">See <a href="https://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/e-is-easy-exeter.html" target="_blank">E ... is Easy .... Exeter!</a></span></div>
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© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-91781811163498065272017-02-04T16:53:00.002+00:002017-10-21T19:44:18.515+01:00Land as Language; Information.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page_4.html" target="_blank"> Land as Language; Devon Beginnings of a Book </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">Voices From Wildridge</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Author: <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JulieSampsonWriter" target="_blank">Julie Sampson</a></span></div>
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© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-60647006373154297902017-01-30T19:06:00.002+00:002017-10-21T19:43:28.548+01:00Mary Hunt Devon's 'Romantic Poet' and the Devon Connection at Dunkeswell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Having just written <a href="http://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/d-down-devon-roads-to-dunkeswell-z-of.html">Down the Devon Roads to Dunkeswell</a>, a piece about Elizabeth Simcoe and her links with Dunkeswell for my new <i>Blog Voices from Wildridge</i>, which ends with a reference to poet Mary Hunt, plus<a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/devons-romantic-poets-mary-hunt-and.html"> link to my old blog piece</a> about her poem, I remembered that I had a backlog of email conversations, which I had promised to add to the blog. At the time of the emails,which concern the life and family of Mary Hunt I was in the midst of a difficult time, so posting was unintentionally forgotten. My apologies to Patricia Dolby and Andrew Ashfied.<br />
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Hence this new post. I am just posting the main messages received from Patricia, as I promised I would. I have added excerpts from another, related email conversation from Andrew Ashfield, at the end of the first <a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/devons-romantic-poets-mary-hunt-and.html">Mary Hunt blog here. </a>Readers who are interested in this C19 writer may find the following of interest. The conversation took place in 2015.<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSMhgr3DT1irYEPphUH1ZotcKRlTB97jf5o88QVCynOaeUo_THXXq22-q7Vi4qcY2P1aI850HCiXFQXygB3PWRfAryNVmFYuv5wnoEEvY91AZaB5iyXtSmfa2Jx3PXK7F_OWu0Nw/s1600/path+to+dunkeswell+abbey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSMhgr3DT1irYEPphUH1ZotcKRlTB97jf5o88QVCynOaeUo_THXXq22-q7Vi4qcY2P1aI850HCiXFQXygB3PWRfAryNVmFYuv5wnoEEvY91AZaB5iyXtSmfa2Jx3PXK7F_OWu0Nw/s400/path+to+dunkeswell+abbey.jpg" width="302" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Path leading to site of Dunkeswell Abbey</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8R8wzIJI0dUc0yO6-i1BK0xxz3-AsmC9Hs-x8AjNasNlamKpjbSqTOF3sbfOYCyE9SHqcGEVcHEKL0Z9oynktuDh2VpuSR8n37nVAKsbHpxgT6o8FXYPWb4p1-L032nwn2OnU_g/s1600/dunkeswell+postcard+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8R8wzIJI0dUc0yO6-i1BK0xxz3-AsmC9Hs-x8AjNasNlamKpjbSqTOF3sbfOYCyE9SHqcGEVcHEKL0Z9oynktuDh2VpuSR8n37nVAKsbHpxgT6o8FXYPWb4p1-L032nwn2OnU_g/s400/dunkeswell+postcard+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Postcard of Dunkeswell Abbey</td></tr>
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<i><b>I read your scrapblog abt Mary Hunt and you mentioned Mary Ward another devonian poet.</b></i><br />
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<i><b>I am researching a Ward/Hunt connection...Dr. Edward Hunt, Rector of Stoke Doyle and Benefield was grandson of the Baron Wards...Sir Edward Ward...daug Jane Ward married Thomas Hunt and inherited the manor of Wadenhoe...only abt 2 miles from Aldwinckle.</b></i><br />
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<i><b>Could you tell me more abt Mary Ward?</b></i><br />
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<i><b>As you know finding info abt. Victorian era women is rare.</b></i><br />
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<i><b>My family was from Benefield...in 1871 my Dolby ancesters were footman and housemaid for 4 Hunt siblings living @ 20 St. James Square Bath but born in Stoke Doyle from 1792-1805.</b></i><br />
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<i><b>Coincidentally...I live in Canada abt 2 miles from Navy Hall where Mrs. Simcoe had written letters to Miss Hunt @ Wolford.</b></i><br />
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<i><b>Thanks, Patricia</b></i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><i><b>.....</b></i></span><br />
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<b>Hi Julie,</b></div>
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<b>Regarding The Visitations on Dunkeswell Abbey poem written by Miss Mary Hunt in 1786.</b><br />
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<b>Thought you might find this interesting. I've figured out who Miss Mary Ann Hunt was. She was the daughter of Rev Rowland Hunt DD the Rector of St Rumbold Church in Stoke Doyle. He was the son of Thomas Hunt of Boreatton and Jane Ward daug of Sir Edward Ward of Preston Rutland.</b><br />
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<b>I've been working on her genealogy with some assistance from a local historian although not final when compared against the Index to Burkes Dictionary of the Landed Gentry written in 1853 by Sir Bernard Burke some adjustments are still required. The attchd file shows her Hunt family members. The attchd email shows how I determined who Mrs. Ann Hunt and Miss Mary Ann Hunt were.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Her ancestry shows that her family had involvement in the Dissolution of the Monestaries.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Thomas Hunt b 1599 represented Shrewbury in the Parliament of the Commonwealth.</b><br />
<b>In 1656 he served the office of High Sheriff of Shropshire.</b><br />
<b>and.. after the restoration of Charles ii he purchased the estate of Boreatton Shropshire.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Sir Edward Ward's father was William Ward and he was brother in law of William Shields</b><br />
<b>William Shields 2nd marriage was to Elizabeth Cromwell the youngest daughter of Oliver Cromwell.</b><br />
<b>William Shields was MP for Rutland in 1654 during the Protectorate Parliament.</b><br />
<b>(see rutland <a href="http://history.org/">history.org</a> newsletter Apr.2014 No. 1/14)</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>....and I'm sure there would have been others as well.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The poem Visitations on Dunkeswell Abbey written by Mary Hunt in 1786 during her visit w the Simcoe's was written with her knowledge of the events of the Dissolution of the Abbey's through her families involvement.</b><br />
<b>Her family had gained considerable wealth by taking over monestary property during the dissolutions and the reformations.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>And of course I thought you should know that Mary was more than just a tutor to the Simcoe children and that her mother Mrs. Ann Hunt would not have been just a "housekeeper". Now we know.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I also noticed that Mary daug of Rev Rowland Hunt DD of St Rumbold Church Stoke Doyle was not included in Burkes Landed Gentry written in 1853 but all of her cousins were. I wonder why.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>It shines a whole new light onto her poetry.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Patricia.</b><br />
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>...........</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><b>Subject: Mrs. Simcoe & Mrs. & Miss Hunt</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><b>Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 01:27:20 -0400</b></span><br />
<b><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /></b>
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<b>This information is from abt 1780-1871</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>1) Traditions & Recollections by Richard Polwhele 1826</b><br />
<b>Wolford Lodge Oct 13 1790 Mrs.Simcoe to R.P.</b><br />
<b>"begs to inform him that MISS HUNT has at last, at the solicitations of her friends, consented to have her name affixed to the Verses on Dunkswell Abbey. She desires it may be inserted</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>"MISS HUNT, daughter of Doctor HUNT rector of <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span> in Northamptonshire."</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The poem and reference to #2,3 & 4 below can be seen @</b><br />
<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.spenserians.cath.vt.edu&source=gmail&ust=1485884577582000&usg=AFQjCNEGVTHlqeb11ZVJVhwvkoAOt_tGCw" href="http://www.spenserians.cath.vt.edu/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><b>www.spenserians.cath.vt.edu</b></a><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>2) English Poetry 1579-1830 Spenser and the tradition</b><br />
<b>Written during her extended visit with L/Gov Simcoe & Mrs Simcoe after an outing to the ruins of an ancient Abbey in Devonshire, Sept. 1786. see Traditions & Recollections "she hath for some months been at Admiral Graves."</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>3) The General Evening Post (9 Nov 1786)</b><br />
<b>"Miss Hunt would seem to have a powerful advocate as her poem appeared in at least 5 periodicals (twice in the universal magazine) before being collected in the anthology of Devonshire & Cornwall poets." </b></div>
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<b>Miss Hunt was not from Devonshire or Cornwall, the topic of her poem was.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>4) Poems Cheifly by Gentlemen of Devonshire & Cornwall (1792)</b><br />
<b>Miss Hunt is described as the 'daughter of the late Dr. Hunt, Rector of <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span>, Northamptonshire.'</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b>5) The European Magazine Volm.8 Monthly Obituaries Dec. 1785</b><br />
<b>November</b><br />
<b>"Lately the Rev Rowland Hunt DD upwards of fifty years Rector of <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span> near Oundle Northamptonshire"</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>6) The Gentleman's Magazine Volm. 90 1801</b><br />
<b>Obituary of Remarkable Person's Bill of Mortality</b><br />
<b>"At Bath in her 69th year Ann widow of the late Rev. Rowland Hunt DD Rector of</b><br />
<b><span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span> Northamptonshire."</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>7) British History Online Parish of <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span> as well as</b><br />
<b>8) The Victorian History of the county of Northampton Published in 1930 by St. Catharine Press</b><br />
<b>A memorial to Katharine d 1760 wife of Dr. Rowland Hunt rector can be found at St. Rumbalds aka All Saints Church in <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span>.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>9) Traditions & Recollections</b><br />
<b>Correspondence Badock writes to Mr Moore Canon of Exeter Sept. 27, 1786</b><br />
<b>He speaks of Miss Hunt's impressive qualities, abt. her Dunkswell Abbey poem and of her being just 20, if so</b><br />
<b>old.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>So .... Rev Rowland Hunt DD (Doctor of Divinity) was born abt. 1730-35 & d. 1785</b><br />
<b>he may have been married twice: 1st to Katherine d.1760, 2nd to Ann b. 1732 d. 1801</b><br />
<b>Mary Ann Hunt was b. abt 1764-1766 therefor Ann is her mother and she did reside in Bath, Somerset.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I have found reference to Rowland Hunt being their son, but no other children such as Caroline or Edward.</b><br />
<b>I have found reference to Rev Rowland Hunt's brother Edward and his children. I think that the Caroline & Edward Hunt mentioned as children of Rowland & Ann Hunt were Edward's children. </b></div>
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<b> I have no idea who the Joseph Hunt from the attchmt is, I see no relation. </b></div>
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<b>Captain Ward Hunt MD is from further descendants of the Hunt family.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>10) Found @ open <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://library.com&source=gmail&ust=1485884577586000&usg=AFQjCNHKKPwbXwL3qmTKnZgyRNcm4lHxMQ" href="http://library.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">library.com</a></b><br />
<b>The Victorian History of the county of Northampton c1930 </b><br />
<b>"the editor credits assistance from, (among others) Mrs. G.W. Hunt and Captain Ward Hunt MD"</b><br />
<b>Wadenhoe</b><br />
<b>Mary Caroline Hunt (d. unmarr. 1847) daughter of Rev. Edward Hunt younger son of Thomas Hunt of Boreatton.</b><br />
<b>Mary Caroline contributed greatly to the repair of the church in 1844.</b></div>
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<b>I believe this is Miss Caroline, called by her second name to avoid confusion w her cousin Miss Mary Hunt.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>11) Northamptonshire Records Office</b><br />
<b>Edward Hunt of Oundle inherited Wadenhoe Manor through his mother, sister of Phillip Ward d. 1752.</b><br />
<b>Phillip Ward bought the manor in 1735.</b><br />
<b>Thomas Welsh Hunt d. 1824 murdered while on honeymoon in Italy</b><br />
<b>then to his Aunt Mary Hunt d. 1835</b><br />
<b>to cousin Mary Caroline Hunt d. 1847 and so on....</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>12) same ref as # 11 Manor of <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span></b><br />
<b>1687 to Sir Edward Ward Chief Baron of the Exchequer, sons Edward & Phillip Ward d. 1752</b><br />
<b>the manor was to be sold and divided amongst sisters and/or their descendants</b><br />
<b>however the Manor was obtained by Rowland Hunt by 1789</b><br />
<b>Jane eldest daughter of Sir Edward Ward married Thomas Hunt d.1753, their son Rev. Rowland Hunt DD Rector of <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span> d 1785, his son is the above mentioned Rowland Hunt d. 1831.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>13) The Gentleman's Magazine Volm. 131 June 5 1822</b><br />
<b>"The Rev Edward Hunt MA. He was of Pembroke College, Oxford MA in 1784. In 1786 he was presented by Rowland Hunt Esq. to the rectory of <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span> co. Northampton; and in 1807 by Sir J. & Lady Pocock, to the rectory of Bennyfield in the same county."</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>14) The Gentleman's Magazine Historical Review Volm. 197</b><br />
<b>1855 Deaths</b><br />
<b>"June 21 at Sattara Bombay Presidency, aged 52 Edward Hunt Esq. late Lieut. 1st Gren. Bombay NI second son of the late Rev. Edward Hunt Rector of Benefield and <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span>, Northamptonshire.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>15) 1871 Census Walcot Parish, Bath @ 20 St James Square</b><br />
<b>Sophia Hunt head of household unmar 74 yrs old landowner born in <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span></b><br />
<b>Maria Hunt sister unmar 71 yrs landowner b. <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span></b><br />
<b>Thomas Hunt brother unmar 64 yrs. landowner b. <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span></b><br />
<b>John Hunt brother unmar 64 yrs. Lieut Colonel HM Bengal Army Retired List b. <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span></b><br />
<b>Samuel Dolby servant single 23 yrs. Footman b. Apethorpe Lodge</b><br />
<b>Francis Dolby servant single 21 yrs. Housemaid b. Apethorpe Lodge</b><br />
<b>( Samuel & Francis are siblings of my Great Grandfather Joseph Dolby b 1842 @ Apethorpe Lodge)</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>16) Northamptonshire Mercury Nov. 28, 1874</b><br />
<b>"Thomas Hunt Esq. Nov. 26 at Bath St James Square in his 84th year the eldest son of the late Edward Hunt MA Rector of Benefield."</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>17) Directory of Northamptonshire 1874 <span class="il">Stoke</span> <span class="il">Doyle</span></b><br />
<b>The Villas property of Misses Hunt, Thomas Hunt Esq. and Lieut. Col. John Hunt</b><br />
<b>Rt Hon George Ward Hunt MP owner of the Manor House.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>18) <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en-GB&q=http://www.wadenhoehistorygroup.org&source=gmail&ust=1485884577586000&usg=AFQjCNHQIP3KCz5Gi_WTJcDzqXIE6kY2oA" href="http://www.wadenhoehistorygroup.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.wadenhoehistorygroup.org</a></b><br />
<b>Chapter 6 : Wadenhoe history in the 19th century by Julia Moss</b><br />
<b>1835 from Thomas Welsh Hunt (died tragically in Italy) to his father's sister Mary d. 1835 then to Mary Caroline Hunt.</b><br />
<b>In 1835 Mary Caroline Hunt provided Caroline Cottage for a school.</b><br />
<b>In 1844 major repairs to Wadenhoe church paid for by Mary Caroline Hunt and Sophia Hunt (and others)</b><br />
<b>In 1847 Mary Caroline Hunt died.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>19) <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">www.britishhistory.ac.uk </a> <wbr></wbr>Titchmarsh Manor Aldwinkle</b><br />
<b>Not related to Hunt family other than close proximity</b><br />
<b>briefly... By 1463 Lenton - 1627 to Fleetwood...by 1723 to Elmes Spinkles eventually to Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim, married Lieut. Col. John Graves Simcoe and were dealing with the property in 1784 and 1788.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I am currently, or I was before this, researching the Lenton family, John Lenton b. 1785 Gretton is the grandfather to my great grandmother Mary ELizabeth (Chapman) Dolby b 1856 in Benefield daugh. of William Lenton b. 1824 in Benefield and Betsey Ann (Lenton) Chapman b. 1828 in Gretton.</b><br />
<b>My Lenton/Chapman/Dolby families had lived in and around this area of Northamptonshire for many generations.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I hope this clarifies the conflicting information abt. the Mrs. & Miss Hunt whom cared for the Simcoe children during the Canadian years.</b><br />
<b>Members of the Hunt family had continued to contribute to Canadian History.</b><br />
<b>Please do let me know what you think. </b></div>
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<b>Thank you.<span style="color: #888888;"><br /><br />Patricia.<br /><br /><br /> </span></b></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-28758620875370342022017-01-30T17:27:00.001+00:002017-10-21T20:16:53.713+01:00New New Blog Piece <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I have posted another piece on the new blog, </div>
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<a href="http://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/d-down-devon-roads-to-dunkeswell-z-of.html" target="_blank">Down the Roads to Dunkeswell </a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyTKKSt66b2eANochurMOj_Ky4-s8AyspZt7qN2uAYuGF7hmAl7DMB36ijddy7YHuBBr0eeheMw2Rx-vPZt4_tapJ3WK7pYKMikgPjTRobH-f9TTJ24BQfCDo7wCuRk3kpmKr_sQ/s1600/tree+in+dunkeswell+churchyard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyTKKSt66b2eANochurMOj_Ky4-s8AyspZt7qN2uAYuGF7hmAl7DMB36ijddy7YHuBBr0eeheMw2Rx-vPZt4_tapJ3WK7pYKMikgPjTRobH-f9TTJ24BQfCDo7wCuRk3kpmKr_sQ/s640/tree+in+dunkeswell+churchyard.jpg" width="412" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dunkeswell churchyard<br />
Photo <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JulieSampsonWriter" target="_blank">Julie Sampson</a></td></tr>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0Dunkeswell, Honiton EX14, UK50.863288999999988 -3.2215750000000350.843242499999988 -3.26191550000003 50.883335499999987 -3.1812345000000297tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-7160645577943991332017-01-11T18:10:00.000+00:002017-10-21T20:11:49.788+01:00Beside the Sea at Brixham and Budleigh<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Please see my new post <a href="http://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/b-beside-sea-at-brixham-and-budleigh.html" target="_blank">B beside the sea at Brixham and Budleigh </a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">for a new Blog </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Writing Women on the Devon Land</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JulieSampsonWriter" target="_blank">Julie Sampson</a></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-1288250309822241292017-01-05T16:41:00.000+00:002017-10-21T20:22:08.755+01:00Moving on ... a new book blog about a new Devon book looking for its way<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">If you have occasionally looked up this blog and are wondering why it appears to have disappeared into the virtual mire, you might be interested to follow its own follow-up. Although I may sometimes still posts add to this <i>Scrapblog,</i> my new blog at <a href="https://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Women Writing on the Devon Land; the Lost Story of Devon's Women Writers</a> and its <a href="https://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">explanatory home page,</a> will explain why I have not even occasionally written posts for this one, during 2016/7. </span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-48031449077410052152016-01-15T12:20:00.004+00:002022-01-11T11:38:29.157+00:00Devon; Celebration; 2016; Ten Women Writers; Anniversaries; Lives & Texts. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b><u>See W<a href="http://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">omen Write in the Devon Landscape</a></u></b></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihbKHRLPNAjfU3MHztGPNHxHEDqqSRIp-4tCA5X_D5kW4si_OKT5WOxc4XCIiOL4HOgu7sCLkKe6s8rLkK9Riz1zA4-aW9d89QEn4dNcvYH-swL8HrAwMYQaUvKvpKt9e7tVv52Q/s1600/Belstone+house+of+Doris+Lessing.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihbKHRLPNAjfU3MHztGPNHxHEDqqSRIp-4tCA5X_D5kW4si_OKT5WOxc4XCIiOL4HOgu7sCLkKe6s8rLkK9Riz1zA4-aW9d89QEn4dNcvYH-swL8HrAwMYQaUvKvpKt9e7tVv52Q/s320/Belstone+house+of+Doris+Lessing.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tor Down House, Belstone, Devon<br />
home of Doris Lessing from 1964-68.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u>Names; Dates; Texts</u></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">50 years ago, 1966, </span><a href="https://dorislessingsociety.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Doris Lessing </a>was living in a longhouse at Belstone tucked beneath the granite folds of Dartmoor's sheltering tors. Lessing kept her home in Devon for four years, from 1964-1968. She may have been working on short stories from <i><a href="http://www.dorislessing.org/winter.html" target="_blank">Winter in July</a> </i>(published 1966); or stories from <i><a href="http://www.dorislessing.org/theblack.html" target="_blank">The Black Madonna </a></i>(pub. 1966); or <a href="http://www.dorislessing.org/thebefore.html" target="_blank">The <i>Summer Before the Dark</i></a> (published 1973) - but see below.<br />
<b style="color: #a64d79; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic;">50 years ago, 1966,</b><span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large; font-style: italic;"> </span><b><i><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EBBylYGdeHkC&dq=wide+sargasso+sea&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjjg5KW4ZrKAhVDbhQKHZobD6MQ6AEINzAC" target="_blank">Wide Sargasso Sea,</a> </i></b>one of the C20's iconic texts was published. The novel was written by <span style="color: #a64d79;"><b><span style="color: #a64d79;"><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ID0wtFAnVhoC&pg=PA22&dq=jean+rhys+devon&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiwlOX035rKAhWBOxQKHemkDaIQ6AEIHzAA#v=onepage&q=jean%20rhys%20devon&f=false" target="_blank">Jean Rhys</a>,</span> </b></span>another internationally acclaimed writer, who completed the novel after moving into a cottage at Cheriton Fitzpaine, near Crediton, in 1960.<br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #a64d79;">100 years ago, from February to in 1916,</span></b> </span></i>writer/poet <b><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/h-d" target="_blank">H.D</a> </b>stayed in north Devon, where, revelling in the sea and scenery, she wrote new poems and translated older lyrics of the Classicists. Her first poetry collection, <i><a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=amverse;idno=BAD4143.0001.001" target="_blank"><b>Sea-Garden,</b></a></i> had just been published.</div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #a64d79;">100 years ago, during summer 1916,</span> </span></i></b>writer <b><a href="http://www.starcourse.org/emd/" target="_blank">E.M. Delafield,</a> </b>during lunch hours away from war work, was drafting her second novel <i style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22084816-the-pelicans" target="_blank"><b>The Pelicans,</b></a> </i>[possibly]<i> </i>in Rougemont gardens, Exeter. The novel was eventually published in 1918. It seems that Delafield had begun to write<b> <i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22084816-the-pelicans" target="_blank">The Pelicans</a></i> </b>but, by 1917, on the advice of her publishers and following the success of her newly published first novel <b><i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13189825-zella-sees-herself" target="_blank">Zella Sees Herself,</a> </i>had</b> s<span style="font-size: small;">et the 'Pelicans' manuscript aside, in order to complete the then more topical<i> <b><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7242995-the-war-workers" target="_blank">The War Workers,</a> </b></i>which was also published early in 1918.</span><br />
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large; font-style: italic; text-align: left;"><b>150 years ago, on 4th November 1866, </b></span><span style="text-align: left;">Scottish writer <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/elt/summary/v037/37.3.nichols.html" target="_blank">Jane Findlater</a> was born near Edinburgh. In 1899 Jane moved with her sister Mary and family to Paignton and then Torquay, where the sisters co-wrote several novels, including </span><i style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6386593-crossriggs" target="_blank">Crossriggs,</a> </i><span style="text-align: left;">which was published in 1908.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;"><b><i>200 years ago, in 1816, </i></b></span>Devon born novelist<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Thomas_(poet/novelist)" target="_blank"> <b>Elizabeth/BridgetBluemantle, (also called Elizabeth Thomas)</b></a><b>,</b> nearing the end of her writing career, wrote and published the novel <i><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gCgGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=purity+of+heart+elizabeth+thomas&source=bl&ots=hAr8RBljQC&sig=lZ_d3T8RmTxfWhfAdeJV-ne3QFc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjtterIsqLKAhVBWhoKHUWjCU4Q6AEIJDAB#v=onepage&q=purity%20of%20heart%20elizabeth%20thomas&f=false" target="_blank"><b>Purity of Heart,</b> </a></i>her satirical response to Lady Caroline Lamb's first novel, a <i>bildungsroman, </i><a href="https://archive.org/details/glenarvon01lambc" target="_blank"><i><b>Glenarvon.</b></i></a><br />
<span style="color: #a64d79;"><i><b>Also 200 years ago, in 1816, </b></i></span>Jewish writer, <b><a href="http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=aguigr" target="_blank">Grace Aguilar,</a> </b>(who later spent several of her formative years in Devon, at Teignmouth and Tavistock), was born in Hackney, London. </div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">250 years ago, in 1766, </span></i></b>according to her own diary, <b><span style="color: #741b47;"><a href="http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/gwillim_elizabeth_posthuma_7E.html" target="_blank">Elizabeth Simcoe</a> </span></b>was born in Whitchurch, Herefordshire; however, most authoritative sources now state that Simcoe invented the date and place of her birth; she was actually born in 1762. Simcoe first stayed in Devon when she was a young child and sometime after her marriage, in 1782, made the county her home.<br />
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Also, 250 years ago, in November 1766,</span><span style="color: #a64d79; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> </span>Devon born writer, <b><a href="http://www.yeosociety.com/biographies/Catherine%20Jemmat.htm" target="_blank">Catherine Jemmat </a>[</b>aka Catherine Yeo] died. Jemmat's <b><i>Miscellanies in Prose and Verse </i>w</b>as also first published in 1766.</div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;"><i><b>300 years ago, on 9th February 1716, </b></i></span><b><a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Palmer,_Mary_(DNB00)" target="_blank">Mary Palmer (born Reynolds</a>)</b>, sister of Sir Joshua Reynolds, was born in Plymouth. Palmer was the writer of<b> <a href="https://archive.org/details/dialogueindevons00palmuoft" target="_blank">A Dialogue in the </a><i><a href="https://archive.org/details/dialogueindevons00palmuoft" target="_blank">Devonshire Dialect</a><a href="https://archive.org/details/dialogueindevons00palmuoft" target="_blank">,</a></i></b> a text once thought to be 'the best piece of literature in the vernacular of Devon' ...<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><u>Commentary</u></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b> Some years present more anniversary and celebratory literary connections than others. For Devon women writers who lived and wrote in, or were in other ways connected with the county of Devon, 2016 is one such year ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;"> Skimming stones back, just <b>fifty years</b>, there's a satisfying background literary contextual link between a medieval Devon longhouse set one the edge of one of Dartmoor's quintessential villages and one of the C20's towering female writers, <a href="https://dorislessingsociety.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"><b>Doris Lessing,</b></a> who some have labelled the 'Grand Dame' of literature. Sources say that the writer adapted the original shippen at <a href="http://wilkinsongrant.reapit.com/wgcrps/public/details/SOU10/PRP/SOU100129_TOP13000416.pdf" target="_blank">Tor Down House</a> - which at the time of her arrival,was still occupied by horses - into a writing room. </span><span style="font-size: small;">I can't confirm which texts Lessing was working on whilst she lived in Belstone; a variety of different possibilities are named. One source says she was writing part of the series </span><i style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="http://www.dorislessing.org/childrenof.html" target="_blank">Children of Violence</a>.</b> </i><span style="font-size: small;">If so, then presumably (because of the novels' respective publication dates) she may have been working on <b><i><a href="http://www.dorislessing.org/landlocked.html" target="_blank">Landlocked</a> </i>(</b>pub 1965) and/or <i><a href="http://www.dorislessing.org/thecity.html" target="_blank"><b>The Four Gated City </b></a></i>(1969). Other possibilities (because of their publication date) are <i><a href="http://www.dorislessing.org/theblack.html" target="_blank">The Black Madonna </a>(</i>1966); Winter in July (1966); <i><a href="http://www.dorislessing.org/thebefore.html" target="_blank">The Summer Before the Dark </a></i>(1973); or, <b><i><a href="http://www.dorislessing.org/thesurvivor.html" target="_blank">The Memoirs of a Survivor</a></i> </b>(which the author called 'an attempt at autobiography', 1974).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> As far as I can tell, there is little information as yet available about Lessing's links with Devon. I have not tried to sift through any archives and I also understand that the author's own dairies will not be made public as long as any of her children are alive; one day there may be more commentary by Lessing herself apropos her time in the Westcountry. At the moment I have to be content with tantalising snippets. According to the Western Morning News, </span><span style="font-size: small;">'she [Lessing] spent many hours in the study which had a large picture window with panoramic views across the paddock towards North Devon and the hills of Exmoor, and she used the room to write in.' </span><span style="font-size: small;">We are also told that Ted Hughes, who lived just seven or so miles away and was one of Lessing's friends, was a frequent visitor; there are suggestions that Lessing bought the house in order to be close to Hughes, and that he found the cottage for her </span><span style="font-size: small;">He is supposed to have berated her 'for covering up the pony ring in the floor of the shippen ... because he felt it should remain visible'. (Western Morning News, November 2013). I understand that Tor Down House is now home to <a href="http://thedartmoorsoapco.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Dartmoor Soap Company,</a> whose mission 'to support Dartmoor's natural environment' including such worthy charities as Butterfly Conservation, would presumably be approved by Hughes, were he still alive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> It seems that Devon was anything but a backwater for a few of the most celebrated women writers in the mid nineteen sixties. Not only was Doris Lessing tucked away writing in a converted shippen under the moor, but just over twenty miles north-east toward Exeter, since 1960, Jean Rhys had been stowed in the hold of a mid Devon village - a place which apparently she hated. We may not know what Lessing thought of the village she'd made her home for four years, but it is the opposite with Rhys, who persistently vocalised her negative response to her Devon locality. I have written about Rhys<i> </i>in Devon in another, earlier blog piece, which you should be able to read at <a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Wide+Sargasso+Sea" target="_blank">Scrapblog - here</a> and in another <a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/rhys-and-plath-cheriton-and-court-green.html" target="_blank">Scrapblog piece - here</a>. I do not know if the two writers knew one another, or ever met. Possibly not, given the near thirty years difference in their ages; but each must have been aware of the other's literary importance and there may have been a kind of connection if not a meeting, because Ted Hughes' literary agent sister <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/05/olwyn-hughes" target="_blank">Olwyn</a> happened to take on Rhys' writing.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDYkfMF1TFfMKSZB2q48O7U98t2BHo72gu_VnseHz39mkIox8GTjiwePiJ3iXM-1XcOU9J9EW6OTokUlOnXH8GYNvgt0SnjwlUJjU39o01p1s5lASyCipb0sjRA5fuCBp3fEUNIg/s1600/WP_20140119_006.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDYkfMF1TFfMKSZB2q48O7U98t2BHo72gu_VnseHz39mkIox8GTjiwePiJ3iXM-1XcOU9J9EW6OTokUlOnXH8GYNvgt0SnjwlUJjU39o01p1s5lASyCipb0sjRA5fuCBp3fEUNIg/s320/WP_20140119_006.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mid Devon landscape near Cheriton Fitzpaine.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> Slip into the past just another stone's throw of fifty years back from <b>1966</b>, to<b> 1916 </b>and there is at least one significant Centennial event, for during early February 1916 <b>H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), </b>accompanied by her husband Richard Aldington,</span><span style="font-size: small;"> travelled down to north Devon from London and moved into the Old School House at <a href="http://www.devon.gov.uk/historicmartinhoe" target="_blank"><b>Martinhoe</b>,</a> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBXjmgYbpiYrfks7ctkHFiSFQAHH3ssrw9AqkmZVn3M6IgMUDIsrLAGjbs7of8PoFQoFgtt6mpc3SIPhtUnd1Xm0xEw23VxnxBB4HvrQKs7-jkBcWdjT7lSEfsWAo37oiAII3c0w/s1600/254320_orig.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBXjmgYbpiYrfks7ctkHFiSFQAHH3ssrw9AqkmZVn3M6IgMUDIsrLAGjbs7of8PoFQoFgtt6mpc3SIPhtUnd1Xm0xEw23VxnxBB4HvrQKs7-jkBcWdjT7lSEfsWAo37oiAII3c0w/s320/254320_orig.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Schoolhouse Martinhoe</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;">A month later, in March, the Aldingtons moved along the lanes and took up residence in Woodland Cottage, at nearby <a href="http://www.devon.gov.uk/historicparracombe" target="_blank">Parracombe</a>.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUyxiratEcPC0xbC-_KwsSaGJqY01-L2oS9v837Y_Q82O15unG3oPO3c5oX8G1E8tn51DwxeU8R7Oqhd94l1pYxVv7vhWX0BhDng7pNtbZsQh35RR5z4kUlNPFm_gvqhxFtAh7LA/s1600/GZWi8Icl-LKvGsmmsZKM42rySDH5_eK-DZ6cQq14BOw.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUyxiratEcPC0xbC-_KwsSaGJqY01-L2oS9v837Y_Q82O15unG3oPO3c5oX8G1E8tn51DwxeU8R7Oqhd94l1pYxVv7vhWX0BhDng7pNtbZsQh35RR5z4kUlNPFm_gvqhxFtAh7LA/s200/GZWi8Icl-LKvGsmmsZKM42rySDH5_eK-DZ6cQq14BOw.jpg" width="188" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woodland Cottage, near Parracombe,<br />
where H.D, lived in 1916</td></tr>
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The couple were soon joined by their friend John Cournos.<br />
H.D. seems to have loved Woodland cottage and the spectacular scenery nearby. She told friends how happy she was. Referring to her surroundings as “wild and pagan,” she mentioned that the “thatched
cottage with a brook [was] backed by a wooded hill with a small mountain in front and the sea,
with cliffs covered with gorge, is half a mile down the valley.” In a letter in May she told her
friend, F.S. Flint, that “every day we go to Heddons [sic] Mouth about 1.30, bathe, scamper
about on the rocks, build a drift-wood fire & have tea.”<br />
Aldington and H.D. were both writing avidly. She was working on Euripides’ <i><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Ion.html?id=usFfAAAAMAAJ" target="_blank"><b>Ion</b></a></i>; <a href="https://archive.org/details/chorusesfromiphi00euri" target="_blank"><i><b>Iphigenia in Aulis</b></i>;</a> the poems “<a href="http://allpoetry.com/Heliodora" target="_blank"><b>Heliodora</b></a>” and ‘Nossis” )See <b><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Collected_Poems_1912_1944.html?id=M_lIqEo8c9wC" target="_blank">Collected Poems</a>;</b> she may have been drafting her extensions of Sappho’s fragments, (in <b><i><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Collected_Poems_1912_1944.html?id=M_lIqEo8c9wC" target="_blank">Collected Poems</a></i>)</b>, as well as several of the
poems later published under <i>The God, (in <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Collected_Poems_1912_1944.html?id=M_lIqEo8c9wC" target="_blank"><b>Collected Poems</b></a>)</i> and may have worked on an early draft of an essay on
Meleager, entitled “Garland."<br />
In Aldington enlisted as a private in a local regiment and left for training. H.D. remained at Woodland with Cournos for a while and then moved eastwards to stay near where Aldington was based, at Corfe. As far as I know she did not return to Devon.<br />
H.D's famous early and short imagistic lyric 'Oread' appears in <i>Sea Garden,</i> and, although the poem was probably written before she arrived in Devon, its sentiments convey the dramatic ambience of the spectacular coastal seascape within which she had immersed herself down in the South-west. </div>
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<i>Whirl up sea-</i><br />
<i>whirl your pointed pines</i><br />
<i>splash your great pines</i><br />
<i>on our rocks,</i><br />
<i>hurl your green over us</i><br />
<i>cover us with your pools of fir.</i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">You can read more about H.D.'s time and writing in Devon in an essay here - <i><a href="http://www.imagists.org/hd/hdsweb/2011.pdf" target="_blank">Sea-Thyme in the South-West; H.D.'s Se/a/cret Garden </a>(scroll down to page 8).</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"> I don't know if H.D. had any occasion to meet new novelist<b> <a href="http://www.starcourse.org/emd/" target="_blank">E.M. Delafield </a></b>whilst she was in the county, or indeed, had ever heard of her; she may have, but it is perhaps unlikely. Although by 2016 Delafield had completed her first novel <i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13189825-zella-sees-herself" target="_blank">Zella Sees Herself</a>,</i> it was not published until early the following year, in 1917. </span><span style="font-size: small;">During <b>1916, </b>Delafield was drafting her second novel,</span><i style="font-size: medium;">The Pelicans; </i><span style="font-size: small;">its last page notes the dates, 'Exeter June 1916; London June 1917', confirming the manuscript was first penned in Devon. However, according to her biographer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Powell" target="_blank">Violet Powell,</a> Delafield had been persuaded to temporarily abandon that manuscript in favour of <i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7242995-the-war-workers" target="_blank">The War Workers,</a></i> which, in light of the contemporary situation, was considered likely to gain more immediate public interest.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9QLDZVKv2Wk-9kXTi7IuUpS5OZ8G2fwKvceIaRAZme0WTP3eOcPLaDbpkdtZoIEqacAyjQiMNntCsH2k7LeopezzKEPtri7XQWiL0WV0xTmQyYPx_yp9YqBtdJNX-CdSbZBSWw/s1600/20150430_102830000_iOS.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9QLDZVKv2Wk-9kXTi7IuUpS5OZ8G2fwKvceIaRAZme0WTP3eOcPLaDbpkdtZoIEqacAyjQiMNntCsH2k7LeopezzKEPtri7XQWiL0WV0xTmQyYPx_yp9YqBtdJNX-CdSbZBSWw/s320/20150430_102830000_iOS.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Rougemont Gardens, Exeter <br />
where E.M. Delafield drafted her early novels.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbDuU22EdTmsUykPh-pA0y5b8Nyc5pOuzQhcvFEOol2pcNPfC5joKbBcg_bdn8aYqCGEATV41ycuRcpLK6e5wusVz9b89QFZw1ZA7BK2VWFBWHbocdTMAfDmgpBF78l_TZFngo_Q/s1600/AdobePhotoshopExpress_88a8c5bef6b4453f964c1df94b3239c1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbDuU22EdTmsUykPh-pA0y5b8Nyc5pOuzQhcvFEOol2pcNPfC5joKbBcg_bdn8aYqCGEATV41ycuRcpLK6e5wusVz9b89QFZw1ZA7BK2VWFBWHbocdTMAfDmgpBF78l_TZFngo_Q/s200/AdobePhotoshopExpress_88a8c5bef6b4453f964c1df94b3239c1.jpg" width="152" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">E.M. Delafield's home<br />
Croyle House,<br />
near Kentisbeare.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;"> As a young girl Delafield had holidayed in Devon with her parents, at Butterleigh, near Cullompton and after the war and following her marriage to Paul Dashwood, the couple bought Croyle House, near Kentisbeare, where the family remained until her death during World War Two, You can read more about E.M. Delafield and her Devon connections in another blog piece, <a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Delafield" target="_blank">Sad December</a>.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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Delafield a younger novelist, by about a quarter of a century, to the Scottish <b>Findlater sisters,</b> frequently spent her childhood summers at <b><a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1766605" target="_blank">East Butterleigh House</a>,</b> in mid Devon. She was probably not aware of the Findlaters' existence when, according to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Powell" target="_blank">Violet Powell</a>, she was sitting, aged 8, in the Butterleigh meadows, avidly listening to her mother reading <i>Pilgrim's Progess</i>. It was about the same time that Jane and Mary Findlater travelled down south, from Edinburgh to Torbay; soon, Devon became their settled home. However, it is possible that by the time their co-written novel <i>Crossriggs </i>first appeared, in 1908, Delafield, now 18, may have come upon and read what had by now become a popular novel.<br />
Delafield was born in 1890. The Findlater sisters first arrived in south Devon in 1899. There seems some dispute as to whether <b>Jane,</b> the younger of the sisters, had been born in Perthshire in <b>1866,</b> or in Edinburgh; but, after their father's death when she was twenty, Jane moved with her family to<b> <a href="http://www.visiteastlothian.org/towns-prestonpans.asp" target="_blank">Prestonpans</a></b> near Edinburgh. Some ten years later, in 1896, Jane's first novel,<i> The Green Graves of Balgowrie (</i>the plot of which was based on her mother's family history) was published; the novel soon became a sought after book and quickly (after the family became concerned with their mother's fragile health) left them with sufficient income to move to warmer climes, in Devon.<br />
There's a short commentary about the Findlater sisters in Devon on the blog, here - <i><a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Findlater" target="_blank">Going Back to the Findlaters</a></i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1TtPrUiZcYYKLqlXMAW1r48jIVbh9RMoSjlkr2lvMve847HR1Tz-qD4SZ0NjllshyxEf31PZI4oN0zgt3hAz5OioQDYpYrj1fk6GbCPQy7R0wU2Y6pgVT2RpZ4FE-X5onZkZOXA/s1600/prestonpans.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1TtPrUiZcYYKLqlXMAW1r48jIVbh9RMoSjlkr2lvMve847HR1Tz-qD4SZ0NjllshyxEf31PZI4oN0zgt3hAz5OioQDYpYrj1fk6GbCPQy7R0wU2Y6pgVT2RpZ4FE-X5onZkZOXA/s320/prestonpans.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At Prestonpans, East Lothian, where the Findlater sisters lived from 1886.</td></tr>
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The C19 fiction writer<b> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Thomas_(poet/novelist)" target="_blank">Elizabeth/Bridget Bluemantle/Thomas</a></b>, whose novel<i> <b><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gCgGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA226&lpg=PA226&dq=elizabeth+thomas+purity+of+heart&source=bl&ots=hAr8UFlrNG&sig=fBPGlgsbdXhikHd3eLFWvpx8vx4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCv8eGqKzKAhXMPRQKHeKEDasQ6AEIKTAC#v=onepage&q=elizabeth%20thomas%20purity%20of%20heart&f=false" target="_blank">Purity of Heart</a></b></i> was published two hundred years ago, in <b>1816</b>, remains an enigma. There are many occasions when a woman author's identity is elusive because of the different names she has taken on, either as pseudonym/s or through a series of marriages, but this novelist's identity has proved to be more complicated than most. I have had her on a list of mystery writers for many years, but only recently had time to go on a google trail. Googling has proved useful and has at the very least provided a few clues, a starting-point. This is what I have found: </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_6sDz89Av9yt7blbFWtI2J15y_yAgYfinwl2nssQlNkz93u3dIqwiOtcAu2MhbrUgN7giYtP7DyUt3lTTpC59gJLyvavWTVCbxcwuptObUIiuKonDfv99vGSgScGOW0cGmCnyAQ/s1600/1393600035BH+1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_6sDz89Av9yt7blbFWtI2J15y_yAgYfinwl2nssQlNkz93u3dIqwiOtcAu2MhbrUgN7giYtP7DyUt3lTTpC59gJLyvavWTVCbxcwuptObUIiuKonDfv99vGSgScGOW0cGmCnyAQ/s320/1393600035BH+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.selfcateringsearch.com/result.php?id=731" target="_blank">Berry House Hartland. </a><br />
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Elizabeth Wolferstan was born circa 1770/1, at <a href="http://www.selfcateringsearch.com/result.php?id=731" target="_blank">Berry House </a>two miles west of Hartland. Daughter of Edward Wolferstan and his wife Mary; it seems the Wolferstan family had a long standing link with that parish. Berry House was remodelled in the 1760's to provide a home for the Land Agent of Hartland Abbey. The following account about Berry's history appears on the description of the <a href="http://www.hartlandabbey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/northern-A4.pdf" target="_blank">Hartland Heritage Trail walk </a> Presumably, Elizabeth, the writer's family of Wolferstan, are, or were one and the same as the Wolfenston family:<br />
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<i>Berry House has been the subject of a recent sympathetic renovation (in
2009). The property came to prominence when the orphaned Wolfenston
child came into the care of his aunt at Hartland Abbey. As he came of age
and married he took on the lease of Berry and transformed it into a house
suited to his status. Wolfenston had possibly inherited income from large
estates in the Midlands which gave him the finance to transform a traditional
farmhouse into his mansion. He became involved in the administration of The
Hartland Abbey Estates on behalf of his cousin and amassed a substantial
property holding of his own.
The family, after three generations, moved to Bristol where they established
further business dealings. Bristol was chosen by many merchants as it was a
major trading port, whereas the local ports of Barnstaple and Bideford became
silted and less accessible to the larger merchant ships. Berry farmhouse has
extensive views south along the coastline towards Cornwall and must have
been splendid on a good day. The interior of the house has been restored to
its heyday and still shows all the evidence of its former life. (See <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:e5AGf3ShPWEJ:www.hartlandabbey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/northern-A4.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk" target="_blank">The Devon Heritage Walk)</a></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"> The Wolferstans apparently descended from a family who held Statfold Hall in Staffordshire. The following blog-piece,<a href="https://handedon.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/statfold-hall-staffordshire/" target="_blank"> HandedOn</a>, concerning that house, contains lots of fascinating Wolferstan-family leads. Back in Devon, t</span><span style="font-size: small;">he family are listed as one of the armigerous families of Hartland. </span>There is said to be a tablet<span style="font-size: small;"> to the Wolferstan family at St Nectan's Church; <a href="http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/4445f474-f020-475c-bcf3-7f62cd676d41" target="_blank">Devon Record Office holds at least one archival record </a>relevant to the family and <a href="http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/d7db0f91-de6a-440b-8bc8-9aa9f2303dd1" target="_blank">North Devon Record Office another.</a> As yet, I have not had a chance to seek these out. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> Elizabeth Wolferstan married Reverend Thomas of Tidenham circa 1795 and moved to Gloucestershire. However, she must have eventually moved back to her home county, for her death was at Parkham, in north Devon, in June, 1855. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Another wikipedia lead helps out here. It indicates that the writer probably had a son, Frances Wolferstan Thomas, who became both Rector and Rural Dean of Parkham; he had a son, also <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Wolferstan_Thomas" target="_blank">Frances the subject of this wiki article.</a> We can probably assume that the writer moved to her son's household sometime before her death. <a href="http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D18558" target="_blank">Here is the will of Francis </a>but you will have to pay National Archives to download it and make it legible. If it is him, then his death was only a year after that of his mother. In the Preface to <i>Purity of Heart</i> the author states that 'it has been finished amid the various occupations of domestic life, by the mother of a growing family'; so Elizabeth must have borne several children.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> I don't know if the author Elizabeth Wolferstan Thomas knew Lady Caroline Lamb. Perhaps she did, because they may have come from similar backgrounds. Perhaps, Elizabeth made a bee-line for her contemporary's first novel, <a href="https://archive.org/details/glenarvon01lambc" target="_blank"><i>Glenarvon</i>,</a> in 1816, because she knew its author and was being nosey. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Elizabeth appears to suggests such: 'The novel of Glenarvon fell into her [Elizabeth Thomas'] hands, with numerous other publications'.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">In the Preface to her novel, the full title of which was <i>Purity of Heart, or The Ancient Costume, a Tale in one volume addressed to the author of Glenarvon, </i>Thomas maintains that the manuscript was completed in three weeks; she didn't delay in making her response. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway, by all accounts, Thomas' rewriting of <i>Glenarvon, </i>a satirical fictional reposte,</span><span style="font-size: small;"> seems to have sparked off a vituperative spar between the two writers. Narrated by an 'old wife of twenty years', its main character, Calantha Limb is a corruption of Calantha Delaval (alter-ego of Caroline Lamb (who appears in <i>Glenarvon</i>). </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Purity of Heart </i>presents</span><span style="font-size: small;"> a counter narrative to the earlier novel, ultimately presenting an unflattering depiction of Caroline, Bryon's onetime lover. Thomas does not hold back when she justifies her attack on Lamb in her Preface, specifying 'its [the novel's] horrible tendency, its dangerous and perverting sophistry its abominable indecency and profaneness'. [It] 'struck [her] with such force', she continues, that she 'could not resist the wish that came into my [her] mind to ridicule it'. '<i>Purity of Heart' </i>responded to <i>Glenarvon'</i>s 'Kiss and Tell' with a virulent, polemical narrative, which Caroline Lamb, in quick self-defence, immediately reacted to:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Before a person attempts to turn another in to ridicule as is stated in the preface, they ought to know how and the author of Purity of Heart has less idea even of common humour and liveliness than anyone I ever met with.</i></span> <i style="font-size: medium;">Better to take no notice of it -</i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;">she added, but did concede that 'the verses' which prefaced <i>Purity of Heart's </i>chapters, were 'rather good', You can read more detailed commentary concerning the inter-textual debate between the two writers and their novels at <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KSgth8oaDPUC&pg=PA203&lpg=PA203&dq=Before+a+person+attempts+to+turn+another+in+to+ridicule+as+is+stated+in+the+preface,+they+ought+to+know+how+and+the+author+of+Purity+of+Heart+has+less+idea+even+of+common+humour+and+liveliness+than+anyone+I+ever+met+with.&source=bl&ots=zgKuXb2Ot_&sig=EZhZuoEyIOP6nEEjvplH4BZySpw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwib1dKdlqfKAhXGvhQKHdx4BdcQ6AEIHzAA#v=onepage&q=Before%20a%20person%20attempts%20to%20turn%20another%20in%20to%20ridicule%20as%20is%20stated%20in%20the%20preface%2C%20they%20ought%20to%20know%20how%20and%20the%20author%20of%20Purity%20of%20Heart%20has%20less%20idea%20even%20of%20common%20humour%20and%20liveliness%20than%20anyone%20I%20ever%20met%20with.&f=false" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Lady Caroline Lamb; a Biography </a>by Paul Douglass, the main source of my information about the interchange between them.<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> However these two novels were received by the public in 1816 - and it seems that reaction to <i>Glenarvon </i>(although the book sold out soon after publication, thus instigating multiple reprintings) - soon led to Caroline Lamb's social ostracisation, after her friends found themselves cast as targets of the scandal plot's satire, <i>Glenarvon </i>has survived through the two centuries since; contemporary literary studies often feature it as a work of early feminist appeal. Unfortunately, Elizabeth Thomas' <i>Purity of Heart' </i>has not retained too much readerly appeal, but only seems to create a buzz of interest because of its connection with that a priori text.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"></span>****</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px; font-style: italic;"> </span><i> </i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOerTuaZ2wqc6vgrbermz6zoIAmE7DSFelX3z-jfR97S0C5yfEHR2i0yQKtSgPTSQhCCZCS7CAXKXAqHrJ7MBOSJWYamod-4f1bN6WVzmxwJ95nIBl0bHf3ycKXsRbR0i9ojlkIA/s1600/256px-Grace_Aguilar.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOerTuaZ2wqc6vgrbermz6zoIAmE7DSFelX3z-jfR97S0C5yfEHR2i0yQKtSgPTSQhCCZCS7CAXKXAqHrJ7MBOSJWYamod-4f1bN6WVzmxwJ95nIBl0bHf3ycKXsRbR0i9ojlkIA/s320/256px-Grace_Aguilar.jpg" width="237" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grace Aguilar<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20title=%22See%20page%20for%20author%20[Public%20domain],%20via%20Wikimedia%20Commons%22%20href=%22https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AGrace_Aguilar.jpg%22%3E%3Cimg%20width=%22256%22%20alt=%22Grace%20Aguilar%22%20src=%22https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Grace_Aguilar.jpg/256px-Grace_Aguilar.jpg%22/%3E%3C/a%3E" target="_blank">See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons</a></td></tr>
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Writer <b><a href="http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/aguilar-grace" target="_blank">Grace Aguilar</a> </b>was born two hundred years ago, in June, <b>1816 -</b> the same year that <i>Purity of Heart </i>was published. Aguilar was twelve when in 1828 she moved down to Devon with her family, because of their father's fragile state of health. The family may also have been thinking of Grace herself, who from an early age had suffered from a chronic long-term illness. In Devon the Aguilars lived in Teignmouth and I understand, also, for a while, in Tavistock.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>While Grace was taking care of him, her father taught her the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_history">oral history</a> of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, complementing her mother's earlier instruction in Judaism. He may also have taught her <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language">Hebrew</a>, which was extremely unusual for a Jewish woman to know at that time. Both her religious and literary interests date to that time of her life; she began indulging them both by making her first efforts at poetry and fiction and attending some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant">Protestant</a> services. A collection of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch">conch</a> shells she found on a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teignmouth">Teignmouth</a> beach spurred her to attempt a scientific paper on the subject (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Aguilar" target="_blank"><b>Wikipedia Grace Aguilar)</b></a></i></blockquote>
One source states that it was after the move to Devon that the young writer 'wrote her first completed manuscript, a play called “Gustavus Vasa” about a Swedish king (now lost)' - see <a href="http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/aguilar-grace" target="_blank">Grace Aguilar.</a> -<span style="color: #777777;"> </span>while in her own memoir <span face=""georgia" , "arial" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.8px;">s</span></span>he records that her first poem was written in Tavistock two years after they moved to the south-west, when she was fourteen. By the time she was fifteen she had begun drafting her first long narrative 'a historical romance set during the Spanish Inquisition called <a href="http://www.sparklingbooks.com/the_vale_of_cedars.html" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank"><b>The Vale of Cedars,</b></a><i> or The Martyr' (</i><a href="http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/aguilar-grace" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Grace Aguilar</a><i>). </i>The text took four years to complete. I believe that the Aguilars were in Devon until 1835, when Grace, now nineteen, contracted measles (from which, apparently, she never fully recovered). Perhaps it was her illness which prompted her parents to move away from South-west England and return to the south-east, to Brighton, where Aguilar found a publisher for her first book of poems, <i>Magic Wreath of Hidden Flowers,</i> (some of whose lyrics must surely have been drafted whilst the poet lived in Devon). One source suggests that it was 'amid the beauty of the surrounding scenery [around Tavistock] that she first gave vent to her thoughts in verse' (see <b><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GFZvqbHo4a0C&pg=PA362&dq=aguilar+tavistock&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiY3JrBqanKAhVBlR4KHQlEB3gQ6AEIKTAC#v=onepage&q=aguilar%20tavistock&f=false" target="_blank">Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History)</a>. </b><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHtsEOw_D-HAwa_1eY5lKUkrQeiHbRKBLG1yC55dR4yK3po1KNbA8P-22R0ki4BnNpJaE4dvETEAjyu3ln3Q4k1HuWo7BS5G_DCP_gu2U5eIaj7W9IihRN07RFrMPzjE564GIkIQ/s1600/a3045131154193529-18806+Wolford+Chapel+Simcoes.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHtsEOw_D-HAwa_1eY5lKUkrQeiHbRKBLG1yC55dR4yK3po1KNbA8P-22R0ki4BnNpJaE4dvETEAjyu3ln3Q4k1HuWo7BS5G_DCP_gu2U5eIaj7W9IihRN07RFrMPzjE564GIkIQ/s200/a3045131154193529-18806+Wolford+Chapel+Simcoes.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance to Wolford Chapel<br />
where the Simcoes are buried.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"> Just like Grace Aguilar, Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim/Simcoe was not born in Devon, but her first acquaintance with the county began when she was younger than the Jewish writer.</span><span style="font-size: small;">You can find the details of Elizabeth's ancestral background at</span><a href="http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/gwillim_elizabeth_posthuma_7E.html" style="font-size: medium;" target="_blank"> <b>Dictionary of Canadian Biography</b> </a><span style="font-size: small;">but the fullest informative and engaging text about her life is the </span><b style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Elizabeth_Postuma_Simcoe_1762_1850.html?id=MkbyDCiBiTgC" style="font-size: medium;" target="_blank">biography </a></b><span style="font-size: small;"><b><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Elizabeth_Postuma_Simcoe_1762_1850.html?id=MkbyDCiBiTgC" target="_blank">by Mary Beacock Fryer.</a> </b></span><span style="font-size: small;">I'm not sure when or how the birth date of 1766 came about. Perhaps it started as a recording error; or maybe it is true that Elizabeth gave the incorrect date, so as to make herself seem four years younger. You will find both dates given online; </span><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=btUxBXB9X5EC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=elizabeth+simcoe+1766&source=bl&ots=TPn3_PUSV7&sig=5ip5hgCdu12_EpqvgCmxGKozPLE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizyYGk3anKAhXJKh4KHY_3Bh4Q6AEIOTAE#v=onepage&q=elizabeth%20simcoe%201766&f=false" style="font-size: medium;" target="_blank">Mrs Simcoe Diary </a><span style="font-size: small;">edited by Mary Quayle Innis gives the later date, but Beacock Fryer's account seems authoritative.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> B</span>riefly, here, orphaned at birth, Elizabeth's aunt Margaret took on charge of her niece and so, when in 1769 (Elizabeth was about seven), Margaret married <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Graves" target="_blank">Admiral Samuel Graves</a> </b>of <a href="http://www.gravesfa.org/habell.pdf" target="_blank"><b>Hembury Fort House</b> </a>near Honiton, the child inevitably began to spend time with the couple.</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span>Eventually she moved in with them and Devon then became her home.</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Elizabeth had visited Henbury Fort House frequently as a small girl where her uncle
doted on her as a daughter and riding companion. When she moved in permanently she
continued her love of horses and art. She had already had a very privileged upbringing
with French and German governess’s and excelled in music and painting. She loved
dancing, outdoor life and plants. Indeed she was extremely accomplished at all the
necessary society pursuits appropriate to an heiress to considerable sums from both
parents. She was rich and very well connected and would be seen as a very good match
for any man of the time seeking to make his way to the top. (See <a href="http://www.gravesfa.org/habell.pdf" target="_blank"><b>Hembury Fort House)</b></a></i></blockquote>
You can find a few notes pertaining to Elizabeth Simcoe on the blog <b><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: purple;">W</span></span><a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/devon-women-travelling-and-writing.html" target="_blank">omenTravelling</a></b> and <b><a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/devons-romantic-poets-mary-hunt-and.html" target="_blank">DevonRomanticPoets</a>.</b><br />
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So nothing shall tempt me from Harry</div>
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His Heart is as true as the Sun<br />
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Eve with Adam was ordered to marry<br />
This world it should end as begun<br />
(From <a href="http://poeticalscavenger.sfsuenglishdh.net/poems/catherine-jemmat-the-rural-lass/" target="_blank">The Rural Lass</a>, by Catherine Jemmat)<br />
<br />
<br />
Catherine Jemmat, born Yeo, in 1714, died in 1766, the same year that Elizabeth Simcoe <i>said</i> <i>she</i> was born. The two writers do bear some resemblance to one another: they both had eminent naval family connections; they both lost their mother very early in life (Jemmat's mother died when she was five or so); there are still unsettled facts re either their birth or death dates. In Jemmat's case it is the year of her death that is still uncertain. You will find that the year of her death is stated as 1766, but there are still doubts about that fact:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In November, 1766, the London Magazine reported what seems to be her death notice, yet her Memoirs were reprinted by subscription with new subscribers in 1771. Some sources list her death date as 1766. Condensed from a biography written by Sarah Forney. (See <b><a href="http://www.yeosociety.com/biographies/Catherine%20Jemmat.htm" target="_blank">A Celebration of Women Writers</a>)</b></i></blockquote>
<i><br /></i> Catherine Yeo/Jemmat is even more elusive than Elizabeth Wolverstan/Thomas/Bluemantle; that is perhaps understandable, given that Jemmat's life takes us back even further than Thomas', to over 250 years ago<b>. </b>And yet, oddly, contradictorily, Yeo presents herself vividly to us; we can almost visualise her before us, she comes across as a larger than life character:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>At the time of my birth my father, the late Admiral Yeo, was a captain in his Majesty's Navy and resided at Exeter in Devonshire, where I was born. My parents when I was yet an infant removed to Plymouth, a principal sea-port and very compatible with his maritime employment., where he raised to the rank of half pay admiral.</i><i>He was a finish'd tar in his own house, a baashar whose single nod of disapprobation struck terror in the whole family. Between five and six years of age I unhappily lost a tender mother, my father was then at sea and arrived the very night her funeral rites had been performed. The night of my mother's interrment and of my father's arrival from a long voyage was the first time to my remembrance I had ever seen him. My mother left in his care besides myself, a brother and sister who were yet younger. My father to apolgise for his coming to England without the knowledge or permission of the Lords of the Admiralty pleaded his extreme fondness and passionate regard to his wife. However he was severely reprimanded for it by their hardships and had not as I have been informed, a ship to command for nine years after. </i><i>He was so enthusiastically fond of her as to insist on having her corpse taken up from the grave to bid a last adieu to the inanimate lifeless body buried in the clay. However, with much difficulty was eventually persuaded from doing so. However, such was his grief, that nine weeks later he married a giggling girl of nineteen. She had five children, four of whom it has pleased providence to call to a better state and had the worthy captain, my half brother completed the number of the deceased, the world and myself might well have borne the loss with christyn patience and resignation.</i><i>To complete the dismal scene that was opening to us, new characters in the great drama of life, my grandfather, a pious, plain, upright man who boarded with us, was snatched away by death. Had heaven pleased to have lent us his life a little longer, he would have at least have seen us properly instructed in the principles of religion and morality.</i></blockquote>
<br />
I think Catherine Yeo's/Jemmat's <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LXwEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=catherine+jemmat+memoirs&source=bl&ots=pKngUpUpB2&sig=L7Yyemaa1Jw2WHNUqZQtNNsRsxI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF57DF0qvKAhVMvRQKHSoHB-oQ6AEIIDAA#v=onepage&q=catherine%20jemmat%20memoirs&f=false" target="_blank"><b><i>Memoirs</i> </b></a>might be the earliest autobiographical writings that we can read penned in the first person by a Devonshire woman.<br />
You can also find Jemmat's lively poem, <i><b>A Rural Lass</b>,</i> included in several poetry anthologies, including in<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=i27SIQifpkQC&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=catherine+jemmat+rural+lass&source=bl&ots=o3thS_IJcP&sig=FWkMyWRsR0Ps2EyeNyb-EsXfdzw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDktz51qvKAhWFXhQKHWZiDD0Q6AEIIDAA#v=onepage&q=catherine%20jemmat%20rural%20lass&f=false" target="_blank"> <b>Eighteenth Century Women Poets, ed. Roger Lonsdale </b></a><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
****</div>
And, last, but decidedly not least, there's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Palmer" target="_blank">Mary Reynolds Palmer,</a> born 300 years ago, 9th February, 1716. Remembered as the elder sister of the much more famous painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, she is probably one of a number of women whose own talents became subsumed under the celebrity umbrella of other, usually male, relations. In the case of Mary Reynolds Palmer, she seems to have had advanced artistic as well as writing talents; it was her own drawing skills which initially tempted her brother to take up the art. Mary Palmer is also documented for her role as patroness (of Dr Johnson and others) and as being the mother of two daughters whose features are preserved into posterity after their uncle represented them in famous portraits. (They are easily found online, one such is at Yale University Digital Collection - <a href="http://findit.library.yale.edu/catalog/digcoll:553370" target="_blank">Mary Palmer, niece of Joshua Reynolds</a>).<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdu6tq78pAYt37V1MkktN3TRMKrMyupsaaDrdUNa65rcLXJ7TxhyphenhyphenwACSdVpAa2OMGm1NpAWH7sL6LhoMbu1mLkrWjsHt7KE2qJIY_E8oeix_Z8LEMKy2CbGw975cdB9lGWH4QpKA/s1600/MaryPalmerByHerBrotherSirJoshuaReynolds+%25281%2529.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdu6tq78pAYt37V1MkktN3TRMKrMyupsaaDrdUNa65rcLXJ7TxhyphenhyphenwACSdVpAa2OMGm1NpAWH7sL6LhoMbu1mLkrWjsHt7KE2qJIY_E8oeix_Z8LEMKy2CbGw975cdB9lGWH4QpKA/s200/MaryPalmerByHerBrotherSirJoshuaReynolds+%25281%2529.jpg" width="145" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mary Palmer Reynolds<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20title=%22Joshua%20Reynolds%20[Public%20domain],%20via%20Wikimedia%20Commons%22%20href=%22https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMaryPalmerByHerBrotherSirJoshuaReynolds.jpg%22%3E%3Cimg%20width=%22256%22%20alt=%22MaryPalmerByHerBrotherSirJoshuaReynolds%22%20src=%22https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/MaryPalmerByHerBrotherSirJoshuaReynolds.jpg/256px-MaryPalmerByHerBrotherSirJoshuaReynolds.jpg%22/%3E%3C/a%3E" target="_blank">Joshua Reynolds <br />[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Mary Reynolds Palmer, as Devon writer, is unique in her creation of the (as far as I know) sole written text in the local dialect, <b><i><a href="https://archive.org/details/dialogueindevons00palmuoft" target="_blank">A Dialogue in the Devonshire Dialect</a></i> </b>- once named as the 'best piece of literature in the vernacular of Devon -<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMMv7ljQ9FwpOC7tXgMq1yDiuDMrsiitgfHYM6inLlAmfALtU-KCMGHEVln0c0qtThaq6NpOEkI5EY-bCcOxZHwVE2o-xJ3BzILF7cbCpyqyL0iELYETfdwviTyo7dEHyJ0Sy1yg/s1600/Office+Lens_20160115_120326.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMMv7ljQ9FwpOC7tXgMq1yDiuDMrsiitgfHYM6inLlAmfALtU-KCMGHEVln0c0qtThaq6NpOEkI5EY-bCcOxZHwVE2o-xJ3BzILF7cbCpyqyL0iELYETfdwviTyo7dEHyJ0Sy1yg/s200/Office+Lens_20160115_120326.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Opening of <br />
<i>A Dialogue in the Devonshire Dialect</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<i> </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
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<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<i> Y</i>ou can still see Mary Palmer's home now known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_House,_Great_Torrington" target="_blank">Palmer House</a>, in Great Torrington,</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
****</div>
<br />
So, there we have it.<br />
Ten women writers -<br />
(perhaps - or not - to emulate?).<br />
Devon. Celebrate!<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Any errors or inconsistencies in the above piece may well be mine. I apologise for any you might find) </span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-37209622924201838472015-10-31T16:16:00.001+00:002017-10-21T11:31:09.896+01:00Delafield's Devon Double-Scapes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> Also See <a href="http://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">Women Write in the Devon Landscape</a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0InY7ZK-6ZAG6dsZVr7RMzCby5RX1lSYH0MZCua-Dhju5dTSKj3KLR-krEcRrNPAbqwxCPATf-fAScqcbLEPd_24oNgsE9AOt9xwSEwsJC3mynrBcC8oCEOEL6R8T6Vc_S-Dnww/s1600/AdobePhotoshopExpress_4c7cb20ecdd243ac9f46ffe61e47daf4+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0InY7ZK-6ZAG6dsZVr7RMzCby5RX1lSYH0MZCua-Dhju5dTSKj3KLR-krEcRrNPAbqwxCPATf-fAScqcbLEPd_24oNgsE9AOt9xwSEwsJC3mynrBcC8oCEOEL6R8T6Vc_S-Dnww/s400/AdobePhotoshopExpress_4c7cb20ecdd243ac9f46ffe61e47daf4+%25281%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Northernhay Gardens, Exeter, where EM Delafield wrote her first novels, in 1915.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<br />
<br />
Almost a year ago, as the last day of the past year fast approached, aware that 2015 was to be a special time of commemoration for past war events, I'd decided I should also give particular attention to Devon women writers during World War One. Somewhat un-enthusiastically, I'd downloaded<a href="http://www.starcourse.org/emd/"> E. M.Delafield's</a> <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VmieCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT181&dq=the+war+workers&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAWoVChMI-eq6-vnsyAIVAbkUCh3gsg1Z#v=onepage&q=the%20war%20workers&f=false">The War Workers </a>on my Kindle, and with the start of the first day of the New Year, began to flick over the pages. It might be a cliché but, within a few page-swipes and a rare occasion nowadays, this was a book I could not put down. As yet, my fastest Kindle read.<br />
I knew that this year, 2015, was to be the 125th anniversary of <a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Delafield">E M Delafield's</a> birth; this was part of my reason for catching up on her novels. She'd completed her first novel <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=D2meCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT7&dq=zella+sees+herself&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAWoVChMIraTa2vnsyAIVibQUCh1uhA48#v=onepage&q=zella%20sees%20herself&f=false">Zella Sees Herself</a>, in 1915, just a year after she'd moved to Exeter as V.A.D. worker. Zella quickly gained public acclaim and whilst she was in Exeter Delafield was prompted to draft her second novel, The War Workers, which was also soon much admired. <br />
A quick plot resume of the second book may help here:</div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Published in EMD's second novel, <i>The War Workers</i>, centres on a community of female war workers, in particular a triangle of women: Charmian Vivian, upper-class daughter of the squire of the local country estate, 'Plessing'; Grace Jones, daughter of a Welsh clergyman and a new recruit to the Midland Supply </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Depôt,</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> of which Charmian is Director; and Lady Joanna Vivian, the squire's wife. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Charmian controls the operation of the depot; she is ruthless, an autocrat and her apparent self-sacrifice as she works all the hours God has provided attracts admiration from all those who work for her. These women, mostly
young and middle-class, live near the Depôt in a rather uncomfortable
hostel, sharing bedrooms and providing each other with early morning tea. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Grace Jones is kindly, charming, excellent at her job,
and soon becomes popular with all the other women; however, she does not join in the adulation of martyred Miss Vivian. Charmian's father suffers a stroke, and eventually dies; Charmian is conflicted with her double duties of war work and home. Grace, meanwhile is drawn into the orbit of Char's ostensibly charismatic mother, Lady
Joanna; she also becomes close to Char's cousin John Trevellyan, who's recovering from his war experience and injury.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br />
Even in these early novels, EMD was adroit at portraying slight alterations of emotional perception and nuance in person to person inter-relationships. During the opening chapters Charmian Vivian, female protagonist in the The War Workers, and autocratic Director of the Midland Supply Depot (rumoured to be cast as an unflattering portrait of the real <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgiana_Buller">Dame Georgina Buller</a>), sits up and takes notice of her new recruit, Grace Jones; the realisation gradually dawns on Char that her newly recruited Welsh secretary, unlike all the other fawning staff who surround her, providing her with the adulation her self-martyring, attention craving persona demands, is not necessarily going to be at her beck and call. The mirroring and gradual reversal of situational roles in the two women's awareness of each other is captured in a series of subtle conversations. The novel's narrative closely pursues the playing out of the dynamic between Char and Grace, gradually drawing into its orbit Char's own fraught relationship with her mother, Lady Joanna Vivian.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">"Who is the little
dark-haired girl I've been working with, Char? The one at that table..." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">"Oh, a
Miss-er-Jones," said Char languidly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">"You never told me you
had any one of her sort here. I want to ask her out to Plessing. Couldn't we
take her back in the car tonight?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">"My dear mother!"
Char opened her eyes in an expression of exaggerated horror.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
The resulting denouement between the three women unfolds throughout the book, providing the novel's emotional crux; set against a background context of war, it gradually reaches its culmination after Char's father's stroke and eventual death:<br />
<div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">"Excellent!" said
Joanna callously. "I shall be delighted to see Miss Jones. I wanted to ask
her here, but Char nearly had a fit at the idea. She'll certainly think I've
done it out of malice prepense, as it is. She's got a most pigheaded prejudice
against that nice Miss Jones."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">"Lady Vivian!"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Lady Vivian laughed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">You'll have to break if to
her, Miss Bruce, that it's Miss Jones who is coming. And don't let her think I
did it on purpose!"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">"I am sure she would
never think anything of the sort."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">"Perhaps not. But Char
does get very odd ideas into her head, when she thinks there's any risk of
lėse-majesté, to her Directorship. I must say," observed Joanna
thoughtfully preparing to go upstairs for her night watch, I often wish that
when Char was younger I'd smacked some of the nonsense out-"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">But before this well-worn
aspiration of Miss Vivian's parent, Miss Bruce took her indignant departure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%;"><b> </b></span><br />
As I read I find myself thinking of character duplications and splittings, of landscape and place-swaps in fiction. I'm also remembering my own three idyllic months spent here, in the midst of the Devon capital, some 45 or so years ago.<br />
<br />
A few weeks later, early Spring, I go to Exeter to wander up near the castle ruins, at Northernhay gardens, where EMD is said to have written the manuscripts of her first novels.<br />
<br />
'Double-Take' is the expression that comes to mind. <br />
<br />
Today is the day I've been aware of a coming to terms with that long ago time. Around every corner and in every street, this city brings up places, endlessly self reflecting mises en abeyne, halls of distorted mirrors. A site then; a site now. They are the same; yet utterly different.<br />
<br />
E.M. Delafield's time in Exeter during WW1 was just over fifty years before my adult life began there. At that time I was light-years away from considering myself as writer. But looking back at those few months I can see how for a young author the bildungsroman is an ideal genre. A way of burying the hatchet of one's pre-adult years. Both of EMD's early books seem replete with doubled and redoubled character or personality re-inventions and deliberately, deliciously encoded name twists. The writer is evidently writing out her own past in her fictional recreations of Zella, in Zella Sees Herself and perhaps of Grace, in The War Workers. Both novels are peopled with a panoply of real characters EMD knew commingled with those she created, who were apparently based on them. <br />
<br />
Delafield references her own concern with real versus imaginary characters, when in the Foreword to The War Workers she states a disclaimer: </div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The Midland Supply Depot of The War Workers has no counterpart in real life, and the scenes and characters described are also purely imaginary.</span></blockquote>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
We can take EMD's statements with a large dose of salt. From the onset of first publication of War Workers there were rumours that Char was the real larger than life <a href="http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_people/buller-georgiana.php" target="_blank">Dame Georgiana Buller,</a> the only woman appointed as Administrator in a military hospital during World War I. EMD's biographer, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/jan/17/guardianobituaries.books" target="_blank">Violet Powell </a>commented, 'Elizabeth admitted that she had got into trouble over The War Workers, and, even more candidly, that she deserved to do so'. Powell adds that even years later, faced with meeting Delafield at social occasions, the Buller family were still uneasy. That might account for the prefacing waiver at the opening to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BMdeDcpkS0QC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+way+things+are+em+delafield&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAGoVChMIyZaC2JbtyAIVArwUCh3bBgH-#v=onepage&q=the%20way%20things%20are%20em%20delafield&f=false" target="_blank">The Way Things Are</a>, a novel written twelve years later, when, the author, now writing in her prime, was able to view her own writing peccadilloes with a certain wry detachment:</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<br />
A good many of the characters in this novel have been drawn, as usual, from persons now living; but the author hopes very much that they will only recognise one another.<br />
<br /></div>
Although ultimately, to do so raises more question than answers, it is fascinating to consider the splittings and doublings of character and place which frequent this novel, and that of the earlier Zella Sees Herself, with regard, both to the author's own personal life, and in terms of the fictional echoes or reflections apropos real events of live war-time Exeter. One local war event which the novel appears to pick up on is the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ilyfBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT67&lpg=PT67&dq=mayoress+train+exeter+1915&source=bl&ots=SnXQILGPhx&sig=KssnQQsE_FUKVTRD6yJBaPya5z4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDQQ6AEwA2oVChMIlIbf4fvsyAIVwrcUCh04hQ89#v=onepage&q=mayoress%20train%20exeter%201915&f=false">handing of food bags to soldiers on a troop-train</a>passing through Exeter station. By February 1915, the then new mayoress, who, like Georgiana Buller, became known as a formidable woman organiser and fund-raiser, had raised £400. Accompanied by 4 other women the mayoress doled out, to every soldier, a large sandwich, two pieces of cake, an orange or banana, and a pack of cigarettes. In the novel, this scene's fictional transference zones in on Char, who, suffering from an extreme bout of influenza, still revels being in the limelight as the object of mass adoration:<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Char moved up and down the
length of the train.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">She never carried any of the
laden trays herself, but she saw to it that no man missed his mug of steaming
tea and supply of sandwiches and cake, and she exerted all the affability and
charm of which she held the secret, in talking to the soldiers. The packets of
cigarettes with which she was always laden added to her popularity and when the
train steamed slowly out of the station again the men raised a cheer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">"<i>Three cheers for Miss Vivian!"<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
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<span style="color: #984806; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span> If we explore the doubled or duplicated fictional/real lives hinted at in fiction we can often open up lost links and connections that once existed between individuals and families of the past. Both of Delafield's early novels apparently sail close to the autobiographical winds of her early years. In the first, Zella's childhood home, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=oGieCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT587&dq=zella+sees+herself+villetswood&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAWoVChMI9oyTwPzsyAIVQr4UCh300g1_#v=onepage&q=zella%20sees%20herself%20villetswood&f=false">Villetswood,</a> 'where there is not another house in miles', is sited somewhere in Devon; was the author picturing the house at Butterleigh, where she had spent many happy childhood summers? Boscastle, the novel's other unspecified family house, home of her aunt and uncle might be based on her real-life aunt's home at Penstowe, near Bude, on the Devon Cornwall border. Zella also sets a literary Devonshire context, as, in an early conversation with her cousin, Zella, the girl heroine, who 'sometimes thought of herself as a Devonshire maid', soon establishes <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=oGieCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT570&dq=zella+sees+herself+Lorna+Doone&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAGoVChMIvO-k1_zsyAIVimkUCh0JUgvi#v=onepage&q=zella%20sees%20herself%20Lorna%20Doone&f=false">Lorna Doone as 'the Devonshire story' </a>whilst declaring her own loyalties that, 'of course I am from Devonshire'.<br />
In the second novel, Charmaine's fictional ancestral family home, in War Workers, named Plessing, is likely to be based on <a href="http://www.hha.org.uk/Property/2574/Downes">Downes </a>near Crediton, the real-life estate of the Buller family and Dame Georgiana's actual childhood home. Was EMD so taken with Georgiana, that she found herself inscribing her contemporary in her early fiction? Indeed, the first stirrings of text may have made its first appearance because of the author's initial fascination with this striking and powerful woman, possibly, to such an extent that the real person could not really be separated from that of the fictional character. The doublings of real and imaginary split selves in this novel replicate phantasmagorically, for it is not only Char, but also, her fictional mother Lady Vivian, who appears as an embodiment of her real-self model, Charmaine's mother, <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/18543959">Lady Audrey Buller.</a> One commentator describes that</div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">In various archival references Lady Audrey
Jane Charlotte Buller, Georgiana's mother is always referred to as an exemplary
woman who certainly on the surface level seems to mirror exactly the fictional
Lady Vivian. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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In the novel, as war-fever crescendos and Char's displaced work-ethic effort increases, her already complicated relationship with her mother Lady Joanna Vivian decidedly worsens, whilst, in a neatly plotted change-over, Grace's bond with Joanna grows in warmth and intensity. By the time the novel finishes, Grace has supplanted Char and become Lady Vivian's substitute daughter. <br />
I have no way of knowing if Audrey Buller's relationship with her daughter, the real Georgiana, was as difficult and negative as the pair's fictional counterparts in War Workers, but it is possible they were, and that if so during her early weeks and months as VAD in Exeter there may have been occasions in which could observe EMD mother and daughter together. Given the problems she had with an overbearing <a href="http://www.starcourse.org/emd/mrs_h.htm">mother </a>herself, she may have been drawn to and susceptible to the signals of such a relationship and what it might reflect back to her of her own. EMD's interest in Buller mother and daughter may have been even more likely because of similarities between their and her own social status, backgrounds and life-events. <br />
The women also had a formidable family military man in common. Although there is no obvious link between Sir Piers Vivian and his fictional counterpart in the novel, Lady Audrey's real-life husband, <a href="http://www.britishempire.co.uk/biography/redversbuller.htm">Sir Redvers Buller</a>, was one of Devon's and the country's most famous, exemplary war heroes, whilst EMD's (step) uncle, <a href="http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMMNQ6_Lieutenant_Colonel_Algernon_Carteret_Thynne_DSO_St_James_Church_Kilkhampton_Cornwall">Colonel Algernon Thynne,</a> became a prominent World War One army figure. Her step-father, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Clifford">Sir Hugh Clifford</a>, also had a distinguished diplomatic record; all three were eminent men who must have created quite a stir in the lives of the women to whom they were related.<br />
The most puzzling and fascinating of all the possible doublings in EMD's first novels however is that of Grace Jones, the other main female character, in The War Workers. Does Grace represent another facet of the author's own personality? Grace is also from an upper class background and is Welsh (Delafield's childhood included several years in Llandogo, in Wales). Grace's main achievement in War Workers is her deployment of a dose of inner integrity, which gives her the strength to disrupt and disarm Char's control freak nature. Did EMD, newly arrived in Exeter, similarly, and really, manage to challenge the authoritative Georgiana Buller? Or, as she observed the dominating Director steam-rollering her way through the cowering other workers at the War Depot, was she projecting, harbouring a fantasy of wishful thinking through the creation of her own imagined character? Of course, we shall never know, but the possible interconnections between real-life and fictional-lives in these Devon-set novels provides us with a kaleidoscope of new material upon which we can mull ...</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-4682606106978430432015-06-02T19:10:00.003+01:002015-06-02T19:10:58.508+01:00South-West-Women-Writers - Devon <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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You might like to know that I've reinstated, rejigged and re-published the website </div>
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<a href="http://south-west-women-writers.weebly.com/" target="_blank">South-West-Women-Writers</a> - whose focus is Devon's women writers. </div>
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I'm hoping that if I can find time the website will gradually develop and expand.</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-52080249709005728562015-05-21T11:41:00.001+01:002015-05-22T17:11:37.541+01:00Conundrums from Chelsea; Women and Gardens; Texts in the South-West<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Watching the current Chelsea Flower Show TV footage and then coming across the piece </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/16/gardens-women-designers-at-chelsea-flower-show" style="text-align: justify;">Gardens: women vying for glory at Chelsea</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> prompted some thought. I'm not in any way, shape or form a garden designer, nor do my efforts in our garden come any way near to those of a professional status; but I do love the garden. I relish being out in it, and love to plan and work it. However, trying to write and at present to complete a long manuscript about women writers from the south-west leaves little time for other hobbies. Often, sitting at the laptop in the middle of a plethora of words my eyes stray out the window to the garden. There is an inner tussle. <i>Stay in. Finish the manuscript. No! Go out. Get amongst the lyrics of stems, flowers, twigs, branches, leaves</i> ... </span><br />
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I've had to content myself with putting together the occasional blog-piece; see <a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Redlynch">Musing on Gardening Writers</a> and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=24064414#editor/target=post;postID=3983707898369234301;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=17;src=postname">Gardening Women who Wrote; the Parker Circle of Saltram </a>and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=24064414#editor/target=post;postID=5550566951566829652;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=16;src=postname">Women who Wrote Gardens; Notes of Dorothy Elmhirst</a> and <a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/carolines-garden-countess-at-mount.html" target="_blank">Caroline's Garden; a Countess at Mount Edgecumbe</a></div>
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In one chapter of my book I'm also including sections about women writers who also gardened, or, about gardening women who also wrote. </div>
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What follows are extracts from these gardening-writing reflections apropos women from Devon and the Westcountry. Please note the piece may include a few repetitions of material already noted in the blog pieces listed above. <br />
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Okehampton</td></tr>
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... If an aerial map of the long-foot of the straggling slipper of the south-western landscape could reveal the intricate secrets of its lost and hidden gardens, unkempt and buried beneath expanses of land now often distinguished by their tracts and swards of grasses - meadow fescue, or creeping-bent and flowers-gone-wild – cow-parsley, corn chamomile, yarrow, or by great rhododendron banks – then, what could be uncovered might parallel the forgotten texts by women, which still survive in chaotically ragged form in archives, and often now, online.<br />
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For, the lost vistas of what were frequently women-inspired gardens reflect and enhance the rich and wild tale of Devon’s (and by extension, the South-west’s) lost literary heritage. A little fruitful googling or library browsing soon conjures vividly textured scenes of once-upon-a-time intricately constructed gardens, many of which few will have heard of; even fewer will be aware of the feminine influence and impact on the creation and care of these once cultivated outdoor spaces. </blockquote>
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Most gardening text books, as well as gardening history texts, commenting on estate garden planning and construction, tend to emphasise the influence and impact of male instigators, whilst the equal contributory share by women – wives, daughters, widows, mothers etc – is ignored, or devalued. Quite a few once lost gardens have been rediscovered in Devon and other South-western counties and several of these have been correctly attributed to the provenance of their female originators. <a href="https://www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/rosemoor" target="_blank">Rosemoo</a>r and <a href="http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/knightshayes/" target="_blank">Knightshayes</a> spring to mind. Other famed gardens, though still very much objects of public attention and acclaim, may not include the woman or (women) who was (or were) most instrumental in that garden’s history in their documentary brochures; or at least may not properly attribute her share in the garden's design/construction. For me, <a href="http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/saltram/" target="_blank">Saltram</a> is an example of this phenomenon. And there are other once-gardens, probably many others, which will remain buried, hidden to view - where frequently the person most influential in their hey-day would have been a woman gardener.</blockquote>
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She may also have written. Perhaps she kept journals; or was a prolific letter-writer; or a poet; or a dramatist; or even a novelist. There are examples of all of these. And more. It is not always easy to tease out or untangle the missing threads of information. Hunches are worth pursuing; they allow a quick link to that little slipped- stitch of a woman’s name and identify who is missing from the garden her-story canvas. The same happens with occasional textual fragments from letters and journals; often they reveal a fragment, which will eventually lead
to a connection with a once-beloved, female-created garden.</blockquote>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span> ‘Though I am planting, I write, which I look on as great merit especially as you have never wrote to me’, Elizabeth, the Countess of Ilchester wrote to her husband in the early 1760’s; the Countess’ words imply that writing and gardening may have been inter-related activities for her. Elizabeth’s subject was the garden at Melbury in Dorset, where she had recently supervised alterations and for which she was probably in the midst of creating new cascades. The Countess was possibly mutually passionate about both garden and writing; she ends her letter ‘So many irons in the fire – I wish I am not ruined’. As well as her gardening activities at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbury_House" target="_blank">Melbury</a>, the Countess was also engaged in making alterations to her other garden, at <a href="http://webapp1.somerset.gov.uk/her/details.asp?prn=55171" target="_blank">Redlynch </a>in Somerset; it was this garden in which her influence was most notable. Gardening-women often tend to prioritise the reading of texts about gardens as much as, or before doing gardening activities themselves. For instance, in gardening design manuals, written instructions for or about the creative scenario of the imagined garden are inherent to the completed garden artifact. In texts about a particular garden, the written description of the place may seem as vital to the writer as the garden itself. Elizabeth of Ilchester’s accounts of her gardening ventures suggest that it was as important for her to note down her achievements on paper as to accomplish the work itself. </blockquote>
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There are deeply rooted and interrelated connections between textual creations and garden constructions, the activities involved in reading a text and the perception of a garden. Perhaps they are not so obvious as those between visual art and gardening, but those inter-relationships of written text and garden are just as intricate. A garden is a written text as much as a visual-scape and as such, is replete with meaning. Gardens are patterns - poems; tell stories; have psychological meaning; carry historical significance. Gardens are also frequently gendered. Metaphorical literature of the garden often conflates flowers, language and women: ‘a garden is said to be ‘full of the flowers of literature’; whilst ‘flowers’ are said to be equivalent to ‘women’. There is, at a deep almost kinetic level, a kind of symbiosis between the epistemology of gardening and women as sentient (and gendered) being. However, in contrast, at the ground level of the garden landscape itself and through the panoply of written texts about gardens, the garden was typically, for many centuries, assumed to be controlled by men. This was particularly so during the C19, a period when male prestige and importance could be made more potent according to the land and estate that he supervised. </blockquote>
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Thus was set up a conundrum for the women who writes (or wants to write), who is also gardener. A garden as poem, as text, gendered as ‘female’ conveys the idea that ‘She’ is [in] the garden. Garden is also part of, or extension to, Her-self. ‘Garden’ is her language; it is also her text; As she writes, she writes herself into the garden; her writing belongs as part of [in] the garden. In other words, there is a complex inter-twining of woman/garden/text, which can impact on a woman’s experience of her own identity. There may be a conflict between the dual passions. Or, arrangements and floral patterns set up in the garden itself, understood as ‘cultural document’[i] become source of alternative texts, delineating that woman’s self as writer, as well as gardener. There may be subliminal links between garden, text, self, as well as between an individual and other women who helped her with a particular garden.</blockquote>
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Scraps of information from various archival sources suggest the intricacies of complex bonds between women, writer and garden in Devon. The will of John Yonge from Puslinch, for example, left his wife, on trust ‘the use of Puslinch house, the garden, Langs Furlongs and the Wilderness, for life’. Women in the Yonge family occasionally reveal gardening interests and pursuits in their letters. F. Anderson Morshead, (who was probably the wife of Ernest Anderson Morshead), wrote to MaryYonge on April 14th 1903,‘My dear Aunt Mary, I hope that your garden blossoms, and flowers have not suffered since Easter Day.’ (Friday 1845). In another letter, Alethea Yonge writes to her sister Mary about the garden in which she is staying on Dartmoor and the Yonge’s famous writer cousin Charlotte Yonge - who loved Devon and as a child stayed at Puslinch with her cousins every Summer - sent<a href="http://www.yongeletters.com/letters-1840-1849" target="_blank"> letters </a>to her family which touch on the garden, suggesting a common preoccupation. On May 3rd 1897, from her own home back in Hampshire, she commented, ‘I wish Gentianella would grow here as yours do! But I never saw the garden prettier, and the nightingales are singing with all their might Banksias are coming out and I brought in a Gloire de Dijon this morning ... ' Another example is that of Lady Gertrude Rolle of <a href="http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-91870-ruins-of-stevenstone-house-st-giles-in-th#.VV2q3vlViko" target="_blank">Stevenstone</a>, who seems to have been proactive in that estate's garden; she gathered seeds in south Africa – large species of Paulonia – also a bed of bamboos and Acanthus,an avenue of fuchsias with climbing rose on arches and fan palms. Behind the library was a small garden with a rose covered pergola of 22 arches leading to the orangery.</blockquote>
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Rarely, however, are there follow-up documents which might tell us in more detail how that reciprocity of garden-woman-identity may have unfolded. Because of the apparent sparsity of easily accessible information, to get an idea of the complex interactions between garden/writing/women you need to stray outside the county boundaries, where, often, archival material relating to estates and families feeds into Devon and is suggestive of similar resonances. However, I have found the following names and places associated with Devon's gardens, which in some cases lead to sources which appear to be replete with material indicative of gardening-writing – much of it still to be sifted from sources locked away in archival depths, or if you are lucky,lured up from some cyberspace crypt:</blockquote>
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Anne Lady Pole <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nIhTVe-BjlgC&pg=PA203&lpg=PA203&dq=anne+lady+pole+shute+barton&source=bl&ots=hMjFSk2g6m&sig=QpZvYYwyZ5BKc5Ip5zcc" target="_blank">re Shute Barton</a> – where, in the C16, she had Dutch Box, Yew, & African and French Marigolds planted. </blockquote>
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Letters by <a href="http://www.lerwill-life.org.uk/history/arlingtn.htm" target="_blank">Rosalie Chichester re Arlington</a>- she used the camera to give visual expression to all her other interests, photographing the various species of trees, shrubs and flowers in her garden, park and woods and listing their Latin names.' (see The Womans Domain, Trevor Lummis and Jan Marsh; National Trust). </blockquote>
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<a href="http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/922303" target="_blank">Lady Lydia Acland </a>re <a href="http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/killerton/" target="_blank">Killerton </a>- see below. </blockquote>
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<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/artsandculture/6271432/Agatha-Christies-Devon-home-Greenway-provides-a-glimpse-into-her-private-life.html" target="_blank">Agatha Christie and Greenway</a> - '<i>The garden looks wonderful – all bursting with plants. It really does look professional at last ... Christie took great pride in its achievements, entering the local flower and produce shows with gusto, and winning lots of prizes. One year Greenway carried off so many prizes that she instituted the Agatha Christie Cup for future years, a competition that her gardeners could not enter, in order to give others a chance.</i>' (See <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/artsandculture/6271432/Agatha-Christies-Devon-home-Greenway-provides-a-glimpse-into-her-private-life.html">Agatha Christie's Devon Home)</a>.</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.pikle.co.uk/diaryjunction/data/simcoe.html" target="_blank">Elizabeth Simcoe and Dunkeswell (or Walford)</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://authorpetercarroll.com/dorothy-elmhirst-and-dartington-devon/" target="_blank">Dorothy Elmhirst and Dartington</a>; See <a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Dorothy+Elmhirst">Women Who Wrote Gardens</a>. </blockquote>
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Louisa Caroline Graves and Hembury Fort - daughter of Sir John Colleton of Fairlawn in the States; she recollected her childhood garden later in life and in her book of poems includes flower poems (see <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CqNcAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=louisa+carolina+graves+gardens&source=bl&ots=92haIKcMwk&sig=U2YU6MZobHXBihUnNZNpN1ZAfo0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Fp5cVeKvN8TD7ga3m4PgCw&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=garden&f=false" target="_blank">Desultory Thoughts</a>).</blockquote>
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<br />
Georgiana, Duchess of Bedford re <a href="http://list.historicengland.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1000428" target="_blank">Endsleigh</a> - she provided the inspiration behind the famous gardens, (see <a href="http://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/swiss-cottage-12506">Landmark</a> Trust).<br />
<br />
Marion Stuckley re <a href="http://www.hartlandabbey.com/" target="_blank">Hartland Abbey</a> (which draws in Gertrude Jekyll who aided Stuckley in her work there) - see <a href="http://www.devongardenstrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/2236%20DGT%201.pdf" target="_blank">Jekyll in Devon</a>.</blockquote>
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<br />
<a href="http://thecountryseat.org.uk/2011/03/13/country-house-rescue-tapeley-park-devon/" target="_blank">Rosamond Christie re Tapeley </a>- and see <a href="http://www.tapeleygardens.com/sustainability.php">Tapeley Park and Gardens</a>.<br />
<br />
Lady Gertrude Rolle re Stevenstone House - see <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wc4fAQAAIAAJ&q=gertrude+rolle+stevenstone+acanthus&dq=gertrude+rolle+stevenstone+acanthus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RKJcVbSBNoWy7QaA74OQBw&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAA" target="_blank">Devon Gardens; an Historical Survey.</a></blockquote>
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Parker women re <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/outdoors/walks/saltram.shtml" target="_blank">Saltram</a> - see <a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Saltram" target="_blank">Gardening Women who Wrote</a>.</blockquote>
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Straying just beyond county margins, recent studies apropos Elizabeth Countess of Ilchester and her family (whose family networks extend widely from Dorset, westwards through Somerset and into Devon) provide real and historical examples of some of these garden-textual inter-relationships. Archives reveal a deep involvement on the part of women in the Countess' family with their gardens.There are many documents which richly illustrate how the women’s lives skilfully intertwined their interests in the gardens themselves and as well, incorporated a plethora of writing, which set down for posterity the complex layouts, structures and planting plans of their gardens. A map of the Redlynch estate during the mid years of the C18 year suggests that requirements of the women of the household were equally as instrumental in the garden’s preparation and development as that of men. And that connection goes right back to at least the C16. In 1757, Elizabeth said of the family’s other garden, at Melbury, in neighbouring Dorset, that ‘Mama is going to put shrubs on the lawn, which we think will improve it immensely’. Elizabeth’s gardening pursuits probably followed on from those begun by own mother Susannah; she endeavoured to preserve the garden as well as instigate changes. And then, after her, women descendants took on and added to the features Elizabeth had initiated in her gardens.<br />
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At that period Redlynch had been altered from its earlier more rigidly delineated formal constructions, which had been characterised by a layout of straight paths and an absence of flowers. By the 1760’s, the garden was adorned with many Rococo elements: curved paths and flower-beds; a rounded pond; serpentine path; a ‘cluster of kidney-shaped clumps’, which may have contained exotic shrubs. The so-called 'Rococo' period, a light-hearted cultural movement which displayed tendencies towards cultivating the fantastic, was traditionally supposed to be associated with the feminine and labels attached to Redlynch garden’s new features conjure that impression: there was a ‘Lady’s Garden’ beside the serpentine path and in 1750 Elizabeth wrote her husband that ‘I am glad my garden looks so pretty with so many flowers’.<br />
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<br />
Elizabeth’s involvement in her gardens was as designer and manager, as well as the physical aspects of gardening per se; all activities which she also put into her writing. One letter sent to her husband asked him to make sure the grass near the house and ‘in my garden’ was mown and in another she asked him to tell ‘Miss Cheeke ... that the pot should be broke ... that it must thrive and be as pretty sweet dears ... and would have one of the round spots in my garden where the ugylest things are planted cleared and filled with mertel cuttings as this is the season.'</blockquote>
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Younger women of Lady Elizabeth Ilchester’s family who lived at Redlynch and other family houses in Dorset, Somerset and Devon, also actively concerned themselves both with their own gardens and with writing about others’ gardens. Elizabeth’s granddaughter, Mary Strangeways, was keen on Redlynch's garden from as early as the age of fourteen. She also enjoyed writing; her father sent her a letter when she was away from home, in which he mentioned not only details of ‘how everything looks delightful, the grass coming on. The birds singing, and the bushes coming out very fast’, but also teasingly scolded her, for ‘notwithstanding your love of scrawling, I have not had one scratch from you’.</blockquote>
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<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span>The eventual fate of Elizabeth Ilchester’s Melbury garden is reminiscent of that of many texts written by women. As already noted, within the conventions of societal gendering of the garden, the consensus of public expectation assumes a garden landscape to be authorised by male, rather than female authority, just as gardens as written about are more likely to be the work of a male author. According to one source, after his mother's death, Lady Ilchester’s son took it in his head to destroy much of the garden at Melbury, which she and her own mother before her, had created and endeavoured to preserve. In 1792, he was found ‘cutting down trees without mercy and making great alterations’, so that many of the features on the eastern side of the garden, such as terraces, paths and walls, so well looked after by his mother and grandmother, were destroyed for ever. <br />
<br />
Elizabeth Ilchester’s female circle’s gardening pursuits illustrate ways in which other West country women of the same period may have similarly engaged with their own gardens and as an extension, or alternatively, with writing. Quite a few gardens remain encapsulated in a woman’s name, either on a map, or kept in folk-memory. As examples, near Widdicombe on Dartmoor, Lady Elizabeth Ashburton - whose main estate was at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandridge_Park" target="_blank">Sandridge Park</a> - is commemorated by the so-called ‘Lady Ashburton’s Bath’, which has an open tank near its entrance. At Saltram, the diarist Fanny Burney, a friend of the Parker family, left a personal mark on the garden, as well as descriptive writing about the estate: ‘<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lincolnian/6362481203" target="_blank">Fanny’s Bower</a>’ is said to be named after her. Several Acland women’s names have become the very stuff of the ground which immortalises them. Agnes’ Fountain, named after one of the daughter’s of Thomas and Lydia Acland, is on the Holnicote estate;<a href="http://geoffbannister.com/images/v175_acland_hut_2.jpg" target="_blank"> Lady Acland’s Hut</a>, which she used to picnic in, is near Selworthy; Lady Acland’s Shrubbery is at Killerton; Lady Acland also has her orchid, Cattleya aclandiae, (‘Lady Acland’s Cattleya’ or ‘<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattleya_aclandiae" target="_blank">Lady Acland’s orchid</a>’). It is possible that the provenance of some of these names came from a male relation, who was initiating his patriarchal authority over both garden and woman, but some of the names can be directly linked back to a particular woman, who it turns out was as instrumental as any man in her involvement in that particular garden. ‘Lady Acland’s orchid’ was named after Lady Lydia Acland, who married Sir Thomas Dyke Acland the 10th Baronet, and whose main home estate became Killerton, now one of Devon’s most famed gardens. Lady Lydia does not feature in any prominent garden brochures about Killerton, but the Botanical Register explains:</blockquote>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Of this very distinct and pretty species of the handsomest of all the genera of Orchidacese I have only seen a single flower, which I owe to the kindness of Lady Acland of Killerton, by whom the drawing, from which the annexed figure was prepared, was also supplied. It was received from Brazil in October, 18S9 having been discovered by Lieut. James of H. M. ship Spey, and flowered in the stove at Killerton in the month of July, 1840, under the able management of Mr. Craggs, Sir Thomas Acland's gardener. </b></span></i></blockquote>
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This information does not elaborate on Lady Lydia’s love for her garden, but other sources, though apparently rare, do. Lydia's significance in the development of Killerton’s garden can begin to be reassessed. In a book about John Veitch and Killerton, Lydia Hoare, wife of the 10th Baronet, (and daughter of the Hoare banking family who owned Stourhead) is said to have been a ‘keen gardener’. Killerton had been neglected for many years when the couple returned to Killerton in the first decade of the C19, to rejuvenate Acland’s estate. Lydia’s input was evidently as important as that of her husband’s in the restoration and redevelopment of the garden. Perhaps more so. At that time, the ‘only real garden was a small unexciting area on one side of the entrance’. It was Lydia who wanted ‘something grander with lawns, wide gravel paths, a shrubbery and fine ornamental trees’. Presumably, ‘Lady Acland’s Shrubbery’ was so named because of her. John Veitch created the hermitage style ‘Lady Cot’, now named the ‘<a href="http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/01/65/016518_e5521343.jpg" target="_blank">Bear Hut</a>’ at Killerton, for Lydia. Perhaps this was a homage to her, as gardener. Lady <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5ZF6EHGYuLsC&pg=PA752&lpg=PA752&dq=lady+lydia+acland+diary&source=bl&ots=B-dF-2qN62&sig=8JL5OTchIihln52I73UsWCKHGQM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=d7FdVYjTFsPg7Qap0ILwBw&ved=0CFsQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=lady%20lydia%20acland%20diary&f=false" target="_blank">Lydia Acland kept journals</a>, for ‘she kept a diary of all the special events in her husband’s political career, including speeches, meetings and elections’ and Devon Record Office holds a ‘rough diary’ which she kept between 1808-53. Interestingly, going back a step to a previous generation of Aclands, Lydia Acland’s husband’s Aunt was <a href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp54149/lady-christian-henrietta-caroline-harriet-acland-nee-fox-fox-strangways" target="_blank">Lady Christian Harriet Caroline Fox-Strangways,</a> (Harriet Acland), who was a younger daughter of Lady Elizabeth Ilchester. Because of the actions and journals written in support of her husband during the American Civil War, after her marriage to John Dyke Acland Harriet became a C19 celebrity. Harriet’s life in England was spent in several Acland family houses in Devon and Somerset and she returned to her childhood home at Redlynch quite often. Given the extent of her sisters’, nieces’ and great-nieces’ love and involvement in gardening and writing about gardening, Harriet’s own engagement with her family gardens may be assumed; however, as yet I have found no evidence of this.</blockquote>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span></b>Garden as a female orientated communal garden space as illustrated by the Redlynch women and their Acland female relations above is not unusual. Reading between (garden) – lines it soon becomes evident that many such C18 and 19 estates existed in the south-west. Just like Elizabeth of Ilchester and her female descendants, other contemporary C18/19 women who gardened seemed to have similar dual interests. </blockquote>
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There is much research yet to do; but it will need to wait, because, for a minute or two I'm shutting down the computer, putting down the pencil, folding the notebook and going outside, to weed/read the sunny garden.<br />
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Downloads/Reinvented%20Devon%20%202010%20(Repaired)%20(Repaired)%20(Repaired)%20(Repaired)%20test.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"> Tim Stuart-Smith, <span style="color: #282828;">So, my
thought is that by making subliminal reference to something half-familiar, a
designed planting can tap into some desire to relive those interludes of
innocence, to wander again in the woodlands and meadows of our subconscious.
The flower bed is transformed from being a mere assortment of flowers into a
cultural document an a repository of partly forgotten landscapes.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="color: #282828;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="color: #282828;"><b>Please note, I have not stated sources for all the information in this piece, but do contact me if you would like to know details about a specific source.</b></span></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-13835406695013623612015-01-24T19:06:00.000+00:002015-01-25T09:26:57.485+00:00Lost Trees; Wildridge & the Great Storm 1990<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<strong><em><u>Lost Trees</u></em></strong><br />
<strong><em></em></strong><br />
<strong><em>Great Grandfather's garden, ‘Wildridge’,</em></strong><br />
<strong><em>North Tawton; Storm 1990</em></strong><br />
<br />
No<br />
trees;<br />
no wellington boot<br />
stuck in the third branch<br />
of the juniper fir; no aunt<br />
shrieking Get down, you’ll fall;<br />
no owls on the sticking-out top<br />
of Douglas tree, to hoot back to<br />
from Michael’s room; no<br />
where to go when you want to swing<br />
in wind and help not-quite-ripe-apples<br />
fall; no camp to climb to in the copper beech<br />
on Saturday mornings and read Ladybird comics<br />
while sucking your thumb.<br />
<br />
No<br />
swing;<br />
no swing on the weeping willow.<br />
You can point to the speck <br />
on the black and white photo:<br />
that’s Great Uncle Michael,<br />
there on top of the Douglas fir,<br />
but they won’t believe you,<br />
Grandchildren won’t believe you.<br />
<br />
What will they say<br />
when you tell them about the monkey<br />
that still chucks bananas<br />
from the puzzle tree?<br />
<br />
Today is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/25/newsid_3420000/3420797.stm">great storm of January 1990</a> so I'm re-blogging this poem, which was written in memory of our childhood's garden's trees, about <em>Wildridge, North Tawton</em>. The poem was first published in <em>Otter; </em><em>New Devon Poetry</em>, 9, 1991 <br />
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The photo was taken after the house was completed in 1910. Trees may have been planted by then but not had a chance to grow! The monkey-puzzle was planted in front of the house and is still there.<br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-84610454412261199212014-11-13T12:27:00.001+00:002014-11-13T15:40:11.366+00:00Eliza's Letters; Eliza Pierce of Yendacott in mid C18 Devon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU_F_lrrZLXuVUisTUdmm8AEMFiv1qY5pR7o8IKdrj7H1XOe1-qwoQ0ZFOZ2L8bFyJ8IUa9kgzsYDp29vXICq5HuWMl-ybktTS2hZi_-XM8D7mhjpQgIrPuqFQ29O-c2kQpFrS9g/s1600/002609_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU_F_lrrZLXuVUisTUdmm8AEMFiv1qY5pR7o8IKdrj7H1XOe1-qwoQ0ZFOZ2L8bFyJ8IUa9kgzsYDp29vXICq5HuWMl-ybktTS2hZi_-XM8D7mhjpQgIrPuqFQ29O-c2kQpFrS9g/s1600/002609_2.jpg" height="556" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;">The Letters of Eliza Pierce 1751-1775; <br />with letters from her son Pierce Joseph Taylor, a schoolboy at Eton<br />See </i><a href="http://www.classicbooksandephemera.com/shop/classic/002609" target="_blank">The Letters of Eliza Pierce</a><i style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"> </i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Raddon Hills north of Yendacott</td></tr>
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The phenomenon of the stressed carer is not just a C21 cultural problem. Way back in the C18 unmarried women were expected to stay home to care for parents, or sometimes for other ageing or ailing relatives, in the case I'm writing about today, an uncle and aunt ...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg97jLl9KhldxH9DPPql9w3VH25uu8pK02BxFeZfQY9wbQXfySMYHyt-oG7pkG7wBNGOTFf0w0mdgux_9gSEvVZB_y3Pl26kmBUEuJ15-fBLVj3QRzcdRFs_SgyoTKplT5W17WEQw/s1600/WP_20140531_01920140531180325.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg97jLl9KhldxH9DPPql9w3VH25uu8pK02BxFeZfQY9wbQXfySMYHyt-oG7pkG7wBNGOTFf0w0mdgux_9gSEvVZB_y3Pl26kmBUEuJ15-fBLVj3QRzcdRFs_SgyoTKplT5W17WEQw/s1600/WP_20140531_01920140531180325.jpg" height="400" width="287" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Near Yendacott</td></tr>
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<br />
... It's 1752 and we must cast our minds back to the depths of the very rural mid-Devon countryside, where along rambling lanes, at Yendacott, in the parish of Shobrooke, just north east of Crediton, a young heiress called Eliza Pierce (born circa 1730) is writing about her present dilemma to her fiancee; the couple had become engaged in 1750:<br />
<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>'I really do begin to Lose al Hopes of seeing my Aunt and Uncle well both together' I wish I could give you a good [account] of my Aunt but she has been excessive ill ever since you left us and has at last been prevailed on to send for Dr Glass who had her blooded to day and advises her to drink Asses Milk and we not knowing who to apply to better then your self have taken the Liberty to send to you for one. It will be a great satisfaction to us all if you can supply us as by that means my Aunt will be able to begin imediately to drink it. My Uncle desires his compliments and he begs you to send one with a foal not above a Month or six weeks old if you have one of that Age if not as young as you can. </i></b></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEPAH_Pgm3H7Ro87J9WIVLrsAe45Zd_NKHVH2uxWh6iE9tlTLuE_g7jk7_RQyeP2t5joHgYidUz_auF3aRMroDHewfNufhyphenhyphenP0pcWlNtWb_kfx8x2WnShsP7_YSkQ8ldceHnARd6g/s1600/WP_20140531_014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEPAH_Pgm3H7Ro87J9WIVLrsAe45Zd_NKHVH2uxWh6iE9tlTLuE_g7jk7_RQyeP2t5joHgYidUz_auF3aRMroDHewfNufhyphenhyphenP0pcWlNtWb_kfx8x2WnShsP7_YSkQ8ldceHnARd6g/s1600/WP_20140531_014.jpg" height="320" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Road at bottom of Yendacott lane, looking west</td></tr>
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<br />
Eliza was not in a position to desert her aunt and uncle, for she was an orphan and her uncle was her guardian and financial adviser; his niece was a wealthy young woman.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz8woKcIW5g-6jeAnlg83apmgy9EmMpXVmyKhzKN-FnL8T-RuZEg7qmVbidXbwZXSLPKuoh-zA7tpV-E6kkiX-4u4URoFIniIWcDO92QPxfIeZa9s4Cq1uqkQQfW7xzhsIiSqiCA/s1600/WP_20140531_016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz8woKcIW5g-6jeAnlg83apmgy9EmMpXVmyKhzKN-FnL8T-RuZEg7qmVbidXbwZXSLPKuoh-zA7tpV-E6kkiX-4u4URoFIniIWcDO92QPxfIeZa9s4Cq1uqkQQfW7xzhsIiSqiCA/s1600/WP_20140531_016.jpg" height="398" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance to Yendacott Manor</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Another letter Eliza sent quotes from Milton’s<i> L’Allegro</i> – “These delights if thou canst give/Mirth with thee I mean to live”. The letter continues:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>'I really think I don’t show my Wisdom by this Choice for I believe the
Wisest Men for the most part are the most sedate but however that does not
prove they are most happy and that I think is the most Material point we have
to look after. More wou’d find it then [than] there do if they wou’d but seek
for it. It is what I am determined to try for & make no doubt of attaining,
if you don’t take care to hinder it, but you had best be cautious, for I may
without any Vanity say that by destroying my quiet you will ruin your own. I
may Venture also to Affirm that there can be no true happiness in a Married
life unless both partake of it. I fancy you are pretty much of the same
Opinion, but people often act against their principles.'</i></b></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Eliza shows herself to be not only educated but having an independent and opinionated mind, well able to stand up for herself. She continues:<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>'As you don’t like the usual Begining of my letters [Sir,] I am determined to leave a Blank which you may fill up with what pleases you best, T’will be altogether as well as if I had done it and; as to the conclusion (which you begin to be affraid will never come) I shall use the same method you see I will take care not to be found fault with twice therefore expect to be told no more then that this Letter comes from Eliza Pierce of Yendacott in the Country of Devon Spinster which is good information.'</b></i></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
It seems that uncle and aunt did recover sufficiently (at least for a short time) for Eliza was fairly soon able to leave them and to marry her suitor, Thomas Taylor, born 1727, who was son of Joseph Taylor MP of Ashburton; the latter's father, another Thomas, had served in the navy under Queen Anne and after leaving had settled in Denbury, at Ogwell House, where the newly married couple eventually made their home.You can read about the<a href="http://gaiahouse.co.uk/about/history-building/" target="_blank"> history of Ogwell house</a> here and <a href="http://www.grosvenorprints.com/stock_detail.php?ref=13134" target="_blank">this portrait </a>shows Thomas Taylor Esquire, of Denbury and Ogwell House. In 1735 Taylor inherited the Ogwell estates from the Reynell family through his marriage to Rebecca Whitrow:<br />
<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>'Richard Reynell came of an old Devonshire family, owning the manors of East and West Ogwell and Denbury, with property in Ashburton, which he represented for 33 years. Though he was classed as a Whig in 1715, all his recorded votes were against the Government. Defeated in 1734, he died next year (buried 14 June). In his will he directed that his estates should be sold to pay his debts and legacies, and to purchase ‘lands in South Britain’ for his niece [Rebecca Whitrow] the wife of Joseph Taylor and her son, his godson.'</i></b></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Taylor may have begun to restore and improve the house after his marriage and in September 1754 the Taylors had a son, whose birth was announced in the London Evening Post:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>'l Extrae' of a Lrit, rfrohi Exeter, S.pt. 2 T. - On Thtirfday laft the Lady of Thomas Taylor, of Denbury, Eyfqj was brought to bed of a-Son and Heir, 'to the'.great joy of that Rainily. 'Yefterday.'</b></i></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
The baby boy was named Pierce Joseph Taylor, and reading between the lines of his mother's letters, it was after her son's birth in 1754 that Eliza began to find that her situation had taken her from frying pan to fire. Perhaps she had had doubts about Thomas before her marriage; if so she must certainly have had them proved to be correct, for gradually she found that her husband showed more interest in filtering her money for the benefit of his own blood relations, rather than employing it to purchase an estate for their own son, as he had evidently promised:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<i><b>'... my duty to your Son obliges me to speak sometimes of things I know you don't like to hear and yet in fact your own interest is concern'd as much as his. I mean in regard to the payment of your Sisters fortune - I never think about it but leaves a dead weight on my Heart, and I can't help saying that it is a most cruel thing in you to keep runing up the interest as you do - I have heard that your Mother is very fond of her Grandson, therefore wonder she as Trustee will suffer such as injury to be done him'. </b> </i></blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Eliza further accuses her husband of appropriating and controlling her own fortune; she alludes to his considerable Scrooge-like tendencies. Her comments highlight the cruelties of a law in which a man upon marriage could take control of his wife's considerable fortune, thereby easily abusing his rights by restricting her own allowance:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b> 'I would not accept of it - and yet the heart in spite of Religion and Phylosophy does sometimes rebel at the thoughts of living for ever, on fourscore pd: a Year - I say for ever - you best know whether you design it to be so, or not - at least while you live you are master of my fate ... </b></i><b><i>I am got into the net of Matrimony ... and the more I flounce, the more Bruises and Blows shall I have'</i></b></blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
It is a shame that only a handful of Eliza's letters from after her marriage appear in the collection; perhaps they are the only ones which have survived; the extant correspondence is apparently dated from 1751-1775. However, the very existence of these letters from a woman from C18 Devon is unusual and so they are to be treasured.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wIlEun66HJLS-ivZB2bAg7HExuhX3s6NdCig0tM4OQ7HJwyLAJzF3bDzhaH5T_sTHydayNAWoFSgX_mR6o8bAKsoEvVVB1sf3BXfnNPQJYcKGIocNDBv9HFms_fbethX6mrvWw/s1600/WP_20140531_005+A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wIlEun66HJLS-ivZB2bAg7HExuhX3s6NdCig0tM4OQ7HJwyLAJzF3bDzhaH5T_sTHydayNAWoFSgX_mR6o8bAKsoEvVVB1sf3BXfnNPQJYcKGIocNDBv9HFms_fbethX6mrvWw/s1600/WP_20140531_005+A.jpg" height="125" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Raddon Hill landscape</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
My first direct encounter with Eliza and her writings came, as often nowadays, via a circuitous route, from another parallel thread of research, that of my search into Devon's past, for family history. Trying to find another elusive Devon woman a great grandmother x 5 or 6, the interlinked names and places on google search strings, collided, ('Mary Hall', a common name, turned up both a fore-mother and a grandmother of Eliza, different women but not so easy to un-thread their life-journeys from a time distance of some 250 years) an entanglement, of various lines of families and references to Eliza's <i>Letters</i> kept popping up; so much so that in the end I found myself deserting my own long ancestor for the satisfaction of finding yet another abandoned literary female figure from my home county; a woman whose words I could begin to resurrect; a restitution probably not to be repeated apropos my own fore-mother - unless I am eventually very lucky to stumble upon and retrieve a long buried archival detail.<br />
<br />
My first direct insight into Eliza and her life came through the lens of another, more recent woman writer - who it turned out was herself a direct genetic descendant of Eliza (although, ironically, there seems less readily obtained information about ,Violet M Macdonald, the author in question, than about her long forgotten predecessor).<br />
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<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>'Among a heterogeneous collection of family correspondence, deeds, account-books and documents of all sorts, the bulk of the letters here published were found tied together, endorsed and numbered with especial care. They were written before and after her marriage Elizabeth Pierce heriess of Yendacott, a property of some importance in the parish of Shobrroke, near Crediton, who about the year 1750 became engaged to my mother's great-great-grandfather, Thomas Taylor. Esq., of Denbury near Ashburton.'</i></b></blockquote>
</blockquote>
Eliza's letters were <b>e</b>mbedded within the text of her own great granddaughter x three. Actually, I discovered that Violet M Macdonald's edition of <i>The Letters of Eliza Pierce,</i> though reclaiming her foremother and ensuring some kind of posterity and recognition for her ancestor's work, had rather a strange, distorted narrative approach. For, although the book purports to be on the subject of Eliza, as Violet says, HER emphasis is on putting together a 'portrait of Thomas Taylor' [her great grandfather x 3]; she seems to suggest that Eliza's own personality is so vibrantly alive within the letters that SHE does not need any kind of explication. In other words, Violet MacDonald's work, though ostensibly backing the female writer, is actually taking a more traditional, patriarchal approach, which uses the woman's text as a way of boosting an important male figure.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, Eliza's descendant's preface to the letters does provide an outline of some of the circumstances and events of her life, indicating that this C18 Devon woman perhaps made the best out of what she found after marriage - and more than likely typical for a woman of that class and period - was a much more narrowly restrictive existence than she had imagined. The newly married Eliza, for instance, did not find herself carried her away to a romantic honeymooners' idyll, or even to her new husband's smart home, at Ogwell, but rather she was taken to his mother's and sister's home in neighbouring Denbury, where she had to help keep house with her in-laws. Again, typically for the age, Thomas seems often to have absented himself from the married household in favour of travelling round the country seeking more stimulating social company than could be provided in the depths of the Devon countryside. At some point Eliza apparently suffered some kind of carriage accident (though, unfortunately her descendant does not give details) and it wasn't too long before she began to return home to Yendacott, on longer and longer visits. During her last years she was evidently there most of the time, which perhaps - as MacDonald suggests - allowed her to safeguard her own estate for her son's future, in light of her realisation that own fortune was now in the hands of her husband, whose financial acumen seems to have been much in doubt.<br />
It was whilst she was at Yendacott that Eliza died in 1776. The entry in the parish church of Shobrooke reads:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i>Mrs Eiza..th Taylor of Yendacott, Mar: 22nd was buried in Linnen, of which notice was given to me ye 29th inst: and the same day £2 10 0 was given by my daughter Lydia to be distributed according to Act of Parliament to the Poor of the Parish. Witness Hen..ry Manning. Minister.'</i></b></blockquote>
</blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPPoz4RwnuJpIexcsLoACVV45_Dzp1cB5BthUnLBE3Nnz4h7qTtz4trvOl7VhCHSh7VMYp15QJdIGY4T70kq5W-pV3DR0ZtW1vbnDBMHvUu4P2AGP3As5JgF72G8lBfkhPlQ1Cag/s1600/Shobrooke+church.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPPoz4RwnuJpIexcsLoACVV45_Dzp1cB5BthUnLBE3Nnz4h7qTtz4trvOl7VhCHSh7VMYp15QJdIGY4T70kq5W-pV3DR0ZtW1vbnDBMHvUu4P2AGP3As5JgF72G8lBfkhPlQ1Cag/s1600/Shobrooke+church.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shobrooke Church; I have not found any tombstone with Eliza's memorial.</td></tr>
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As I became more familiar with the letters and Eliza's own voice grew louder I was more and more drawn in; her correspondence is strongly suggestive of a lively woman with considerable wit and lively intelligence. Gradually, pieces from various other research sources concerning some of the lost pieces of jigsaw of her and her family's lives started to surface. I learnt about Pierce Taylor, Eliza's son:<br />
<div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>'Attended Eton 1766-71 where took drawing lessons from Alexander Cozens; not apparently related to the amateur artist John Taylor of Bath (1735-1806). Destined originally for the law, he persuaded his father in 1774 to buy him a cornetcy in the 3rd Dragoons. In 1784, the 3rd Dragoons having been disbanded, by then Major Pierce retired on half pay and settled down to farming at Combe Royal, which he rented for some years. He had married Charlotte, daughter of Dr William Cooke, Dean of Ely, and they had several children. In 1794 Pierce's father handed over the estate of Ogwell, Thomas Taylor removing to Denbury. Pierce Taylor died on 14 Aug 1832 [Morning Chronicle, 18 Aug 1832]. His widow Charlotte died in 1837.'</b></i></blockquote>
</blockquote>
Then I happened upon the provenance of the preserved and published<i> Letters of Eliza Pierce.</i> It appeared that it was the behaviour of her perhaps rather wayward son that initiated their initial preservation.Writing to her husband again Eliza tells him that for this twelvemonth past Pierce has always</div>
<div>
<b></b><br />
<b></b>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i> 'wrote a story of a Cock and Bull, and never given an answer to any thing I mention’d in my Letter – for this reason the last time I wrote to him, I told him that as he never wou’d give an answer to any thing I wrote, I thought for the future, it would be full as well for me to send him a Blank paper, as he wou’d see by the directions it came from me; and that if he pleas’d he might answer them in the same manner – that after we had carried on this curious correspondence for some time, we would publish a Book under the title, of Letters between a Mother and her Son; in which should not be one wrong expression, one word of bad English, nor one false narration and I added to be sure the World would be in vast admiration at our Genius’es – after this I wrote him a Story of my own invention, applicable to the affair, his answer was as follows – “Dear Mama – I receiv’d your kind Letter last Monday in which was a Story I like exceedingly, I intend to publish it in the Magazine, as I am willing other people should have the pleasure of reading your Epistle as well as myself – When shall we publish these Letters between A Mother and her Son? when we do I hope to get a little Money, for I am sure I want some much” Do you think I cou’d help sending him some? no I am too silly a Mother'</i></b></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />
By now I'd started to look further back into the familial background of Eliza's life-story; her father, Adam Pierce had died circa 1732. He left a will, which for a small fee is accessible <a href="http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D635549" target="_blank">online. </a><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>Will of Adam Pierce Esquire Yendacott, Devonshire 4 December 1732 February 1733 The last Will of Adam Pierce of Yendacott, Co. Devon, Esquire.</b></i><i><b>.....to his wife Ann ... and to her father John Gibbs, Esquire, JJ and to his brother Samuel Pierce (whom he makes his Executors) he leaves all his freeholds, in trust, to pay his debts, and then to his sons, if any, in tail male; remainder to his daughters as tenants in common; remainder to his brother Samuel Pierce for life, with remainder to his son in tail male; remainder to his brother Thomas Pierce for life, and then to his sons in tail male; remainder to his brother John Pierce for life, and then to his sons in tail...the manor and lands at Thorowton to his brother Samuel, absolutely, and the rest of the leaseholds to his own daughters ... On the Original is endorsed " Nuper de Yarrenton in parochia de Shobrooke."</b></i><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
As I read I understand that Eliza was Adam Pierce's only daughter, which tells us why she became the sole beneficent of this legacy. It also tells us that it was her father's brother Samuel who became her guardian; however her mother Ann's part in her story is more or less hidden within the labyrinths of archival data and even teasing out a tiny thread of it proved difficult. Perhaps the main reason for that is that she apparently died in 1748, which must be why Eliza was left an orphan. Eventually I found Ann's will, which confirmed my thought:<br />
<div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>'1748. The last Will of Ann Gregson* of Exeter. Leaves her husband William Gregson* the manors in of Shute and Satch-field in Cheriton Fitzpayne, and lands in Shobrooke (which she thinks were entailed by her aunt Prideaux's willf on Ann Maria Heath for life) for his life ; remainder to Samuel Pierce of Gendacott her brother-in-law, and to Stephen Weston, Esqre., of Exeter, in trust for her daughter Elizabeth Pierce.J To the same persons also she devises her manors of Cross, and all other her manors in Devonshire, and the rest of the estates which came to her from her father.'</b></i></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
<b> </b> After Adam Pierce's death Ann had re married secondly a Dr. Baliyman and thirdly, William Gregson. Presumably her daughter was in her household with her mother's respective husbands until Ann's death. Eliza's mother was a daughter of John Gibbs by Mary his wife, who was daughter of Nicholas Hall, Esq., a Treasurer of Exeter Cathedral; Mary Hall, Eliza's maternal grandmother, was possibly descended, or at least related to the extended family of Exeter Cathedral's C17 Bishop Joseph Hall, whose large family of sons inherited not only various prominent positions at the Cathedral, but also large acreages of his Devon land. It is unfortunately not easy to establish these family connections with real certainty because key details about blood-lines are, at worst, missing, or at best, languishing in an archival deposit somewhere, waiting for some passionate future researcher to discover. The cultural ambiance of Eliza's recent ancestral family might provide explanation for the high level of education which she had evidently received. Eliza, though slightly diffident about her own educational ability, could quote from Milton's and Young's poetry and argue about the 'relative merits of Sir John Denham's <i>Sophy</i> and <i>Cooper's Hill</i> and Henry Fielding's novels', whilst one of her correspondents was the well-known academic and contemporary writer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Talbot" target="_blank">Catherine Talbot</a>. One or two letters in <i>The Letters of Eliza Pierce </i>are those exchanged between the two women. Catherine endorses her younger friend's talents for writing: '<i><b>Lady who has the talent of writing </b>for writing read scrawling - well, why if I may believe your good Man you have that talent in perfection, so pray do not wrap it up in a Napkin but let me hear from you as often as it is good for you to write.'</i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyJoAGap4PL3nxS7P2kfsOSemowQ_7mOIvVygyIMZkT9PFE-vaOHyfaRn5kZ-2OKNmaduWE9Z2xES85KjIlDmJg81Y6_MYsmblXfAmv5qkA1w9GsN-inOIebsNqOs47IfpFyP6vA/s1600/WP_20141111_001+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyJoAGap4PL3nxS7P2kfsOSemowQ_7mOIvVygyIMZkT9PFE-vaOHyfaRn5kZ-2OKNmaduWE9Z2xES85KjIlDmJg81Y6_MYsmblXfAmv5qkA1w9GsN-inOIebsNqOs47IfpFyP6vA/s320/WP_20141111_001+(1).jpg" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cover of 'The Letters'</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Eliza, the letter writer, was a cultured and intelligent woman, who had strong opinions of her own concerning not only the running of her life but also on the subjects of books and literature. Eliza may have become acquainted with a few other literary contacts through her male relatives. As more and more material accumulated about Eliza and her family I found that there are several examples indicating that the men in this family had strong literary links and interests. <a href="http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/inthebigynnyng/manuscript/ms895/" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">The C15</a><a href="http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/inthebigynnyng/manuscript/ms895/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank"> Process of the Passion; The Gospel of Nicodemus, </a>was at one time owned by Eliza's husband Thomas Taylor whilst her father in law Thomas Taylor was a friend of Edward Talbot, Catherine Talbot's father, so presumably that contact was kept up with the families of the following generation; the two women must have met each other through their husbands and/or fathers:<br />
<b><i>'his friend and fellow collegian, <a href="http://words.fromoldbooks.org/Chalmers-Biography/ij/joseph.html">Joseph</a> Taylor, esq. (father of <a href="http://words.fromoldbooks.org/Chalmers-Biography/t/taylor-thomas.html">Thomas Taylor</a>, of Denbury, esq.) introduced him to Mr. Edward Talbot, of Oriel college, the second son of Dr. William Talbot, at that time bishop of <a href="http://words.fromoldbooks.org/Wood-NuttallEncyclopaedia/o/oxford.html">Oxford</a>. This event was of great importance in his future life, as it secured him the friendship and patronage of the Talbot family, to whom he owed all his promotion.'</i></b></div>
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<i><b>'TALBOT, CATHERINE (1721–1770), author, born in May 1721, was the posthumous and only child of Edward Talbot, second son of <a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Talbot,_William_(1659%3F-1730)_(DNB00)">William Talbot</a> (1659?–1730) [q. v.], bishop of Durham, and his wife Mary (d. 1784), daughter of George Martyn, prebendary of Lincoln.'</b></i></blockquote>
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It appears that the Taylor family were part of a C18 literary inclined local network for there are several other indications that Thomas Taylor of Denbury was influential in the determination of several contemporary male writer's careers. For example he'd helped to promote his friend, the eventual critic and writer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gifford" target="_blank">William Gifford</a>:</div>
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<b><i> 'It had been intended that Gifford should open a writing school, but that plan having been given up, Mr. Cookesley proceeded with his efforts to obtain some employment for him. He looked round for some one who had interest enough to procure for his protégé some office at Oxford. This friend was eventually found in Thomas Taylor, of Denbury, a gentleman to whom Gifford had already been indebted for much kind and liberal support. The situation Mr. Taylor secured for him, GIFFORD AT OXFORD. 131 was that of Bible Reader for Exeter College. Gifford proceeded thither in February 1779'.</i></b></blockquote>
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Eliza's own legacy, as well as the letters includes a <a href="https://18thcenturyrecipes.wordpress.com/tag/eliza-taylor/">collections of recipes</a>, but apparently nothing else. Given that not only are her letters some of the most important written by a woman still extant from the mid to late C18, from Devon, whilst little fragments about her life can start to show a way into what I believe is an almost forgotten literary heritage apropos the county's women, I find this writer and her correspondence tantalising; how much more is there out there to be found and re-assembled? And Eliza and her writings take on particular significance when I begin to consider her story in light of my dual research. Not only was I looking for women who wrote from Devon; when it came to Eliza it seemed that I had stumbled upon someone who might link up with my own familial ancestry. Her life writings might even begin to fill out the lost puzzles from several women from a past lineage. When I have time to return to my search for Eliza Pierce I shall start to look at her life and her writings from a new perspective ...</blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance Porch-gate to Shobrooke Church</td></tr>
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<i><b>Correspondence is taken from extracts of Elizabeth Pierce, heiress of Yendacott, parish of Shobrooke, This information about Pierce Joseph Taylor is taken from (ed) Violet MacDonald: The Letters of Eliza Pierce, 1751-1775 (London, 1927), which also included Pierce's letters from Eton that were published by the school a couple of years later. The frontispiece was a reproduction of a 1781 portrait of Pierce Joseph Taylor as a Captain in the 21st Light Dragoons, by John Downman.</b></i></div>
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<i><b>Other quotations from various sources available on the internet.</b></i></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0Newton St. Cyres, Devon, UK50.784884625763439 -3.591070175170898450.779865125763436 -3.6011551751708986 50.789904125763442 -3.5809851751708983tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-66896086946076791632014-05-13T18:20:00.002+01:002014-05-13T18:22:47.560+01:00Edith Holden Holidays on Dartmoor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On Yannadon</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #134f5c; font-size: x-small;">Near Burrator Reservoir</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> The artist/journalist Edith Holden, made famous during the last
decades of the C20, after the long delayed discovery and publication of her <i>Country Diary of an Edwardian</i> Lady (written
1906, published posthumously 1977) spent many holidays on Dartmoor, where she
stayed with friends at Dousland. Holden took long daily walks onto the nearby
moorland – to Yannadon, to Meavy, to Burrator, to Sheep’s Tor, the Walkham
Valley, where she observed, watched and listened to the melting pot of moorly
presences. Not much escaped her attention: A ‘Linnets’ nest with one egg in it
in a whim-bush’; ‘a dead slow-worm in the road’; ‘Samphire in a plantation on
the Prince Town road’; [at Lowry], ‘in a bog by the lake-side [gathered] small
Water Forget-Me-Not, Cotton-Grass, Lesser Spearwort and Sundew’; ‘purple Bell
Heather [is] just breaking into blossom ... pathes of the pink Bog-heath or
Cross-leaved Heath’; ‘Numbers of Sky-larks and a few Pee-wits ...circling round
me and crying over my head’.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Holden’s exquisitely illustrated books are
accompanied by deceptively fey diary-notebooks: these encompass descriptions of
the weather, and embrace the breadth and depth of species of flora and fauna on
Dartmoor. Now, during the post C20 period, when it is common knowledge that our
plants, flowers, birds and wildlife in general are at risk, Edith Holden’s
closely scrutinised attention to the moor’s wildlife and flora is a way of
reminding us of the frequently unnoticed actual
natural world around us in our technologically driven virtual-world. She
draws us, forgotten naturalists, towards
the moor’s invisible presences. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Remembered as an icon of rural Edwardian nostalgia,
Holden was actually daughter of a radical socialist family from the Midlands.
Her meticulously noted observations take us away from sentimentality, beyond a
simple nostalgic response, to a recognition of their exceptional value as
repository documents of a treasured past:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>‘May 12<sup>th</sup>. Eighth day without rain and sixth of
bright sunshine. I took my paint-box and a canvas and went to make a sketch of
Leather Tor and the moor with the ponies. The high banks on each side the steep
lane down to Lowry are covered now with small flowers: - Violets, Strawberry-flowers,
Tormentil, Bilberry, and today I noticed
for the first time the bright blue flowers of the Lesser Speedwell and blue and
pink Milkwort.’</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> Though not primarily
known as writer, Holden spent as much time on her written texts as on her
paintings; as a young girl she had experimented with automatic writing when
participating in seances and always kept a private notebook in which she
accumulated her responses to the natural environment; she then carefully edited
and rewrote these so as to complement her illustrations.</span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> One day, a few years ago I visited what I'd come to think of as Edith Holden country, in the vicinity of what is now Burrator Reservoir and nearby Yannadon Down. The landscape here </span><span style="color: #3d85c6;">brims with well-trodden public-paths, people and echoing voices coming from bank-holiday picnics-in-glades, cars backing at every corner on the lanes, passenger slamming doors. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> In the early 1900’s country lover Edith hiked here daily, from her friend’s home at Dousland. Later, she will paint still-lifes and write her iconic diary, just as we, now, wandering in the copses alongside Burrator and below Sheepstor, track over hidden imprints, where the artist’s out-soles flecked scintillas from her mind into the rooted ground. And where, we suddenly, stumble upon a tiny posy of orchids left lying beside the leat; someone has left the gathered bunch for us to find. Is it a sign, I wonder?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Some time later I knew I had to write a poem for Edith. I pictured her </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">seemingly at peace with the world as she wandered these solitary paths, picking celandines and spurge; her halo’s a whorl of butterflies - white and orange-tipped, small-tortoiseshell, peacock, painted lady and the skylarks above </span><span style="color: #3d85c6;">are composing special lyrics for her. The poem ends with the terrible scenario of the poet's death, in 1920, when</span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> collecting flowers from a riverbank at</span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> Kew Gardens<u>,</u> she became hooked on a branch and drowned in the Thames</span><span style="color: #3d85c6;">.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> My original poem is layered, with a watermark photo of the landscape as background to the words. It appears as such in one publication <a href="http://www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/jsa4.html" target="_blank">online</a> but in <i><a href="http://www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/category/1009-sampson-julie/product/4163-julie-sampson-tessitura" target="_blank">Tessitura</a></i> only the words are displayed. The poem will not quite appear as it should on this blog. It is not too easy to get the spacing exactly as intended using Blogger, but hopefully when I press publish it will not look too bad.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><i><b>Up on Yannadon; </b></i></span></span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><i><b>June 1906</b></i></span></span><br />
<b style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Who
was Edith leaving <i>The Grange</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> went for a walk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> a long walk up and in- <i>red-admiral</i></span><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">to the dip above<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">that
clear golden sky rare orchids
<i>painted-</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">in
her hand those flowers <i>lady</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> in her hair and how oh <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">how they issue<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> a sneeze<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> of coloured tissue flit <i>wall-butterfly</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">with
us ghost-moths<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">far
away from the falsity of
<i>peacock</i>-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">collections from our own <i>butterfly</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> scarlet
cosmetic-box<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> to a place<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> a haven <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> where
E.M.H.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> who was Edith<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> who left for a stroll round the fields went<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">for
many a long walk many<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">another long long
walk with fragrant <i>orange-</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">golden
blossom under sky <i>tipped</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">her
carpet blinging blue-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">bells primrose spurge
and up on the moor<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">she
followed paths with her
soft<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">butterfly brushes taking
her pencil for a longer walk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">to sketch and write texts that<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">narrate
her birds beasts flowers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">her
world of sky and gorse soaring
lark and<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">the
hawk sailing into
<i>small</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">the
sea of gold above<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> setting sun following<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">this
everlasting long walk a future towards<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">the
death-branch above grey
water hovering<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">waving hook
back<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> ensnare her</span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"> <i>tortoise-shell
spotted-orchid
wild-<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">
rose<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;">(Edith
Holden, author of <i>The Country Diary of an
Edwardian Lady and Nature Notes stayed at</i></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><i> The Grange, Dousland on Dartmoor</i>) <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;">This poem was published by GreatWorks <a href="http://www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/jsa4.html" target="_blank">here</a> and again in <a href="http://www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/category/1009-sampson-julie/product/4163-julie-sampson-tessitura" target="_blank">Tessitura</a> (Shearsman, 2013)</span></b></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTSlLZY4YUxfxdAuN39HQqk870Zo7_WW1SZ6yG3sPb7IOqxjoJD9aUpmwK8edDJ-G408ANDV23YKMsLtq6iqrQLcOPYxJ4N5we20ucNn4wNlemraf-je9K_BsrJ9tAYEFiTi7kCg/s1600/000_0059.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTSlLZY4YUxfxdAuN39HQqk870Zo7_WW1SZ6yG3sPb7IOqxjoJD9aUpmwK8edDJ-G408ANDV23YKMsLtq6iqrQLcOPYxJ4N5we20ucNn4wNlemraf-je9K_BsrJ9tAYEFiTi7kCg/s1600/000_0059.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orchid at Burrator</td></tr>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-54441072147750154432014-05-11T18:36:00.000+01:002014-05-12T15:11:16.377+01:00Rhys and Plath: Cheriton and Court Green<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDVleyHC_vyrHlAn6flAvqkcd4aGyLU81rJX2suGI8-OCpsG1d5M43CNle7qwyCfSWmZ0eEcspqW4oP4LXl6NhVdayA-03Kj9641GjavMqHmwGpW6ypBQfR-NTnEBnpRfdkMMwA/s1600/WP_20140119_006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqDVleyHC_vyrHlAn6flAvqkcd4aGyLU81rJX2suGI8-OCpsG1d5M43CNle7qwyCfSWmZ0eEcspqW4oP4LXl6NhVdayA-03Kj9641GjavMqHmwGpW6ypBQfR-NTnEBnpRfdkMMwA/s1600/WP_20140119_006.jpg" height="188" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mid-Devon landscape</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The following poem was written as part of a long sequence inspired by women writers and the Devon landscape. Jean Rhys and Sylvia Plath both lived in mid-Devon for several years and both women wrote at least one of their most famous texts whilst living in the county. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The poem was first published by <a href="http://www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/category/1075-shearsman-magazine/product/4387-shearsman-75-76" target="_blank">Shearsman, 75 and 76 </a> and appeared in <a href="http://www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/category/1009-sampson-julie/product/4163-julie-sampson-tessitura" target="_blank"><i>Tessitura</i>,</a> published 2013. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The photo is not directly linked to either writer or their writing but was taken along the Crediton to Bickleigh road, not far from Cheriton Fitzpaine, where Jean Rhys lived in the 1960's. For me the landscape represents the typical 'sheep-grazed fields' of the mid Devon landscape. </span></div>
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Rhys and Plath: Cheriton and
Court Green<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">these
two at least are drawn toward the heart</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">not
by pulsating blood were always set apart <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">agendas
written memories of other coasts<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">sand-salted
air sea-spray shiftings ghosts<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">pursued
animal tracks footsteps they knew<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">allowed
bone instinct renewed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">a
tug of roots towards our far west coast<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">each
found a home a haven her
most<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">aerial though anchored texts spilled out<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">over
night-time tables dispelling doubt<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">and
fear these hit hardest during days<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">when
sheep grazed fields in <st1:place w:st="on">Devon</st1:place> space displaced<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">the
given self its fretted folds and pleats<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">to
fractured arteries that beat beat beat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 8pt;">(from </span><st1:place style="font-size: 8pt;" w:st="on"><i>Devon</i></st1:place><i style="font-size: 8pt;"> Women</i><span style="font-size: 8pt;">)</span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 8.0pt;">Jean Rhys completed <i>Wide Sargasso Sea</i> whilst living in Cheriton
Fitzpaine; Sylvia Plath worked on <i>Ariel </i>in <st1:place w:st="on">North Tawton</st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-53492671112371722392014-04-30T18:51:00.001+01:002014-05-11T17:24:45.985+01:00'Ballerina’s Song of the Earth' and Sourton Tor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYq_2023HavieQVWP2zkn0GNKrxAl36_wtIaIRRtHi4KYbmnnZBGAANFd6EOG4p11icxPe4VcP3bEsr3s4a_HYqldMoA6iVzQryq0JExvBv23ua5adCWzYT5l-h9sM93ZNDLmzhA/s1600/26062007(001).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYq_2023HavieQVWP2zkn0GNKrxAl36_wtIaIRRtHi4KYbmnnZBGAANFd6EOG4p11icxPe4VcP3bEsr3s4a_HYqldMoA6iVzQryq0JExvBv23ua5adCWzYT5l-h9sM93ZNDLmzhA/s1600/26062007(001).jpg" height="291" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beneath Sourton Tor</td></tr>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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This poem was inspired after we walked our dog underneath <a href="http://www.davebellamy.co.uk/Views/tors_near.php?Min_Easting=253284&Max_Easting=255284&Min_Northing=88812&Max_Northing=90812&Tor_Name=Sourton%20Tor" target="_blank">Sourton Tor</a>. It was quite a wild day, hence the mood of this photo. Somehow the vision of the ballerina just appeared, manifested. in front of me. She was dancing over and dancing across the moorscape and when I returned home, haunted by the image, I had to write the poem. It has been published by <a href="http://issuu.com/ouroborosreview/docs/issuefournovember12/32" target="_blank">Ouroboros</a> and is included in my Collection <i><a href="http://www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/category/1009-sampson-julie/product/4163-julie-sampson-tessitura" target="_blank">Tessitura</a></i>, published 2013, by Shearsman. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Ballerina’s Song
of the Earth<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i> (for Darcey Bussell)<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Someone
draws<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a
circle<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
pencil-line
ornate in grey<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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around
that empty space<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
the
virtual (veritable) land<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
where
no one is<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
except
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a
bird (lost Bride)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
butterfly<o:p></o:p></div>
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free
from its cage <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
*<o:p></o:p></div>
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Have
you ever (just once)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
considered
latent (wasted) talent<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
where
words are lost-in-ether<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
though
they may alight on a limb<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of
branch or perch as sigil on the stalk<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of a
rose?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Where
does the phrase of incomplete text<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
finish?
How long<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
does
it exist in air before<o:p></o:p></div>
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it
dies or<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
drops<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
to
earth dead<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
stone?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
*<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And
no! She couldn’t have been there!<o:p></o:p></div>
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All a
figment and that you know don’t you <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
what
I mean? though<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
bracken
was an arena for theatre<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
day I saw her on the moor<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’d
been considering the <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Self <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
fulfilment
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
those
who say <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
they
can have <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and
do<o:p></o:p></div>
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everything
anything<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
as
and when<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
they
like and thinking <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
how
fortunate they must be<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just
to the north high on the crown<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of
Sorton tor there’s a metamorphosis<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of
rocks beneath my feet<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
this
moor-scape edge grass-hillocks on<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
green-earth
salted with dew<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
*<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i> She</i> sashayed <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
down
from mid-grey skies – Ballerina! <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You
must have seen her<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
dancing<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
on
the ground -<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
demi- plié -<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
pirouettes en pointe</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
catch light on her dress<br />
as she skims<br />
& spirals<br />
her dervish of whirling death</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
it’s
chiffon and satin a border</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of
organdie and net <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
shimmer <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of lilac-cerise<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
blue <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
sequins<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
butterflying<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
everywhere<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She’s
intent on inner voices<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
singing
the song <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
where
she went on the night of her final <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Farewell
to Earth<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I
caught the last glimpse<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
her
terre à terre before<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
she’d
gone one with the hang-glider<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
behind
the tor<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
the
stones<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
out
of view<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of
sight<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and
now don’t know<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
if
she came to be part of the poem<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
to
tell us something<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
or
even flew in just for fun<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
a
trick of light simplicity itself<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
disguised
in a moving text<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of
ballet-dress<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>You</i> do know though<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She
won’t return<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Note:
Bussell’s last performance with the Royal Ballet in June 2007 was Macmillan’s
ballet <i>Song <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">of the Earth </span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-33176361264174794952013-11-11T20:13:00.001+00:002013-11-11T20:13:07.529+00:00E Book <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: ARSMaquettePro, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 15.59375px;">You can now download a copy of <i>Scrapblog; a Writer from the South-West</i>, which is a </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: ARSMaquettePro, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 15.59375px;">compilation of various pieces from this blog. <a href="http://store.blurb.co.uk/ebooks/65932-scrapblog" target="_blank">Here is the link </a></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-80370602125190429152013-10-11T16:57:00.000+01:002014-05-11T17:25:29.299+01:00Tessitura <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I'm so pleased to be able to announce that my first full-length poetry collection, <i>Tessitura,</i> is now available from <a href="http://www.shearsman.com/index.html" target="_blank">Shearsman</a>.<br />
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The collection is made up of many poems written over the years, and includes the sequence <i>Devon Women, </i>whose subjects are some of the many women writers I have researched from Devon.<br />
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You can download a sampler at the publisher's link - <i><a href="http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2013/sampsonJ.html" target="_blank">Tessitura</a></i>. <br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-26619961477404794252013-06-29T19:53:00.003+01:002017-08-22T16:46:06.735+01:00The 'White Queen's' 'Devon' daughter; Katherine of York, Countess of Devon.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also see <a href="http://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">Women Write in the Devon Landscape</a></span></div>
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<b> Katherine Courtenay</b>, Countess of Devon (1479-1527), born Princess Katherine Plantagenet, youngest daughter of Edward IV and his wife <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/woodville.htm" target="_blank">Elizabeth Woodville</a>, (the so-called 'White Queen'), sister in law to Henry VII, aunt of Henry VIII and relation of <a href="http://tudorhistory.org/people/beaufort/" target="_blank">Margaret Beaufort</a>, Countess of Richmond and Derby, spent much of her adult life at <a href="http://www.tivertoncastle.com/" target="_blank">Tiverton </a>or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colcombe_Castle" target="_blank">Colcombe Castle</a>. Sometimes the Countess also paid visits to check on the management of her other estates,which included Topsham, Exeter, Poltimore, Cullompton, Seaton and Marshwood Vale.<br />
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Katherine married <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Courtenay,_1st_Earl_of_Devon" target="_blank">Sir William Courtenay</a>, in 1495, when she was about sixteen. His death occurred in 1511, when she was only thirty three.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif;">Shute:Umborne Brook looking south south-east towards Colcombe<br />© Copyright <a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/1578" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator" title="View profile">Martin Bodman</a> and licensed for reuse under this <a class="nowrap" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" rel="license" style="white-space: nowrap;">Creative Commons Licence</a></b></span></td></tr>
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For the remainder of her life, as a principal landowner in the county Katherine, whose self-styled seal presented her as ‘daughter, sister and aunt of kings’, therefore had continued strong links with Devon.<br />
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She seems to have been a proud and pious woman, who was rightfully aware of her prestigious social position. There are glimpses of the Countess’ participation in literary ventures, such as reading and letter-writing: she sent letters to the king and cardinal from her Colcombe castle; in her castle chapel at Tiverton an inventory after her death found ‘manuscripts and printed books’, which included ‘The Apposteler’, (an Epistolary), ‘<a href="http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illmanus/burnmanucoll/t/011bur000000233u00001000.html" target="_blank">Catholicon’ by Johannes Balbus</a>, ‘<a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Ortus_Vocabulorum.html?id=4Q10nAEACAAJ&redir_esc=y" target="_blank">Ortus Vocabulorum’</a>, (Latin-English Dictionary first printed c. 1500 by de Worde), a law book and a copy of ‘<a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlegend/GoldenLegend-Volume6.asp" target="_blank">Legenda Aurea’ (Golden Treasury) by Jacobus de Voragine</a>. Also in the chapel were four printed mass books and the Countess’ <i>Book of Matins</i>; one of these was covered with tawny velvet, had silver and gilt clasps; another was black velvet with engraved silver and gilt clasps. Account books of 1523 show that a ream of paper was purchased, as well as ink, copperas, used in making ink. Legal documents provide a sense of the Countess’ own voice as her concerns were transcribed on to the page: she made an elaborately worded vow to remain celibate and not marry again after her husband’s death – and survived him for some sixteen years:</div>
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<i>‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I, Catherine Courtenay, Countess of Devonshire, 1 widow, and no wedded, ne unto any man assured, promise and make a vow to God, to our Lady, and to all the company of heaven, in the presence of you, worshipful father in God, Richard, Bishop of London, for to be chaste of my body, and truly and devoutly shall keep me chaste for this time forward, as long as my life lasteth, after the rule of Saint Paul. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’</i></blockquote>
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Katherine Courtenay seems to have been an avid record-keeper. Accounts of her magnificently kept Devon estates run into many pages; they detail her daily-life with such precision that occasionally it seems almost possible to gaze at her as she goes about her life. The best source to look for to demonstrate this is the book <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=X8JPu4ltlJ4C&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=The+Apposteler&source=bl&ots=hwciNZTN8R&sig=UWOl9nM2Y9Cl4UrT-d_rVlYBglk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hQHPUeO7DoriO9OEgfgE&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Apposteler&f=false" target="_blank">Tudor and Stuart Devon: The Common Estate and Government : Essays Presented by Todd Gray Margaret Rowe and Audrey Erskine</a>.<br />
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I have often wondered if Katherine, with her literary interests and ability may have translated texts in her chamber at Tiverton castle, like her older kinswoman <a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Beaufort" target="_blank">Margaret Beaufort</a>, who had stayed just along the road at Sampford Peverell, <a href="http://scrapblogfromthesouth-west.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Beaufort" target="_blank">Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby</a>, mother of Henry VII, whose wife was Katherine's elder sister Elizabeth of York, appears to have spent a lot of time at her Sampford Peverell estate. Margaret Beaufort's death took place in 1509 when Katherine, Countess of Devon was about thirty, so, given that they may have been in their respective estates during the same years, it is quite possible that the two women did have social contact and share their literary pursuits.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sampford Peverell; Church behind the canal. The site/house which Margaret Beaufort probably stayed in is to the right of the church.</td></tr>
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Katherine Countess of Devon died in 1527. She was buried in <a href="http://www.britannia.com/history/devon/churches/tiverton.html" target="_blank">St Peter's Church Tiverton</a> and the town is said to have witnessed an <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=X8JPu4ltlJ4C&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=katherine+courtenay+tiverton+funeral&source=bl&ots=hwciNZ_NcL&sig=l9O6fDgpxnXGh82nhe9-weK9_lk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_xzPUavLJou2Pdf2gcAD&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=katherine%20courtenay%20tiverton%20funeral&f=false" target="_blank">elaborate funeral</a>, perhaps fitting a once Princess. It must have been quite a spectacle.<br />
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Some of my information On Katherine Countess of Devon comes from the following:<br />
<b>Tudor and Stuart Devon: The Common Estate and Government : Essays, </b>Presented by Todd Gray Margaret Rowe and Audrey Erskine, University of Exeter Press, 1992.<br />
See also Sampson, Mike.<b> Katherine Courtenay, Tiverton's Royal Princess (1479-1527)</b>. Tiverton: Tiverton Musem (1993).<br />
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© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-2327501700923583692013-06-16T14:22:00.000+01:002017-03-31T18:13:45.313+01:00'Woman Clothed with the Sun'; Joanna Southcott, the Devon Writer who was also 'Prophetess'.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Over the centuries there have been a handful of self-appointed eccentrically motivated, so-called religious women, who were born and brought up in the heart of Devon. At least a couple of them managed to create a stir, not only within the county, but way beyond its boundaries. One in particular caused sensation when in the early C18 she declared herself to be the new messiah. Joanna Southcott became the greatest religious phenomenon of her age.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/26050" target="_blank">Joanna Southcott</a>, (b.<a href="http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/Gittisham/" target="_blank"> Gittisham</a>, Devon in 1750, d. 1814), was the Westcountry
prophet, visionary and so-called greatest religious phenomenon of her age. At
her death she left an infamous 'Box of Sealed Writings'. Joanna believed she was
the </span><i style="font-size: 11pt;">woman clothed with the sun</i><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> of the
Book of Revelation. At the age of 64 she declared that she was pregnant with
the Messiah by means of Immaculate Conception: she died four months later;
dissection after death revealed no pregnancy, but instead flatulence and
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I had my own revelation when, one day, taking the time to do a little family history, I realised that one significant branch of my own Devon family originated from the east Devon district near to where Joanna Southcott’s family farmed. My own ggggrandparents may have known her family,perhaps indeed, knew her. I mused on what they may have thought of the weird and wonderful declamations and writings of this way-out woman. And in particular how the communities in the vicinity may have reacted on hearing about Joanna’s infamous box. I wrote the following poems some time ago after finding about Joanna. </div>
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Woman clothed with the Sun: Joanna<a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[i]</span></b></span></span></a> (1)</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As then, two hundred years
before, thoughts turn <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to Apocalypse. Inclement
weather now, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the world in terror then.
Pandora’s red delights<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">are thrilling earth … A quiet
voice caresses<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">still those sunlit scenes,
translating <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Eden</st1:place></st1:city>’s
garden<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">onto richest <st1:place w:st="on">Devon</st1:place>’s
fields.<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
</span>God had chosen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to announce the Second Coming
and <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the snake’s ubiquitous in long
grass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Despise not prophecies or those who can<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">foretell the shooting star… Now I’ll tell<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">them what to do. Just prove the writings, they<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">are true. Unfasten cords from the Box<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">within that Great Box of Common Wood;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in the inner Arc white-bound with ribbon find<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">sealed rich bundles of texts. Read sigils for <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">healing earth
from these leaves of the Tree of Life<span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[iii]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Look for the Key. At the
apposite moment <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">all’l be revealed – a
dream-bird’s flight<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">across Midnight Skies or a
conflagration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sudden. Startling. Of the
ancient oak tradition<span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: xx-small; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Joanna (2)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some said she was charismatic,
enigmatic;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">others, eccentric, fanatic, an
impostor. Choose<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">for yourself. Hear the story,
seal the fate<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">of the Woman of the
Revelation. Her son,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Divine Child, was to be born
and succoured<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">on the State-Bed - its frame
satinwood, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">embroidered with gold. <i>The canopy’s ornamented <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">with morning and evening stars, <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a gold dove at its centre preens the olive branch<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>of peace</i>; <i>blue silk
entwined with blue thread<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">shimmies over the cradle-crown: <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>intricate carving and a gilt sheen beneath</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The layette, daytime frocks,
night flannels: linen;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">muslin caps and flannels for a
coat; those tiny silver<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">brocaded shoes. So <st1:place w:st="on">Shiloh</st1:place>, Prince of Peace.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Devil <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">of the piece was located in
the disease of the uterus:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">size of a small pear, thus
dissected relic of her mission.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"> Joanna Southcott, b. Gittisham Devon in 1750, d. 1814;
the westcountry prophet, visionary and greatest religious phenomenon of her age.
Over 140,000 people joined the Southcottian Society founded by her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"> As a child Joanna loved to wander in the fields of the
locality of her Father’s farm at Gittisham; later, many of her religious
prophetic texts were brimful with farming imagery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"> The infamous 'Box of Sealed Writings' left after
Southcott’s death still apparently awaits in safe custody the will of twenty
four Bishops who will demand “in the time of danger” to investigate its
contents. Over the years since its inception the Box has caused much furore.
Joanna began to sign and seal her writings
two years after she first began to write in 1794, noting the dictates of
the voices within who ordered her to hand them over to friends, who were at the
end of each year to seal them within a box. One of the pioneers of the movement
having custody of the box in 1801 and returning from Exeter to London had a
large case made, which enclosed the whole box,”for the cords around it were
sealed with seven seals and I had a quantity of tow put between the box and the
case to preserve the seals from being broken". Hence, there was now a box within
a box. After Joanna’s death in 1814 the box, which was by now referred to as the “<st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ark</st1:place></st1:state>”, underwent a series
of perambulations and even to the present day has caused much conjecture as to
its whereabouts and authenticity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"> In the 1930s an ancient oak tree in the park at East
Barnet burst into flames on a clear day with no apparent cause and led to much
consequent speculation; it was beneath this tree that Joanna was supposed to
have received inspiration that she was the “woman clothed with the sun”
described in the Book of Revelation and thus was led to the predictions and
secrets contained in the infamous box.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;">[v]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"> At the age of 64 Joanna declared that she was pregnant
with the Messiah who had been immaculately conceived; he was to be called <st1:place w:st="on">Shiloh</st1:place>. She died four months later. Preparations for the
supposed child had been elaborate and exotic.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn6">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Julie/Documents/devon%20sonnets/Joanna%20woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20sun/Woman%20clothed%20with%20the%20Sun.doc#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 8.0pt;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"> After her death her body was kept warm for four days
and four nights, after which a dissection was performed to find the truth of
the pregnancy and cause of death; the result was no pregnancy but appearance of
pregnancy due to flatulence and “extensive omental fat”.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWK7qWzneXdpTixvhgz4px4IFuz_DjvFH2A32GXeobqkueIc74GceLZQG-L4HIiHFiqG-akCJiZPtnC7T3hAXuYaa8VdUh-CfCBqS8E4-dTS5rOtAnrw_Dn6vV7lqh7tqsQNHS9A/s1600/CNV00014-1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWK7qWzneXdpTixvhgz4px4IFuz_DjvFH2A32GXeobqkueIc74GceLZQG-L4HIiHFiqG-akCJiZPtnC7T3hAXuYaa8VdUh-CfCBqS8E4-dTS5rOtAnrw_Dn6vV7lqh7tqsQNHS9A/s400/CNV00014-1.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joanna's childhood home</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: 8.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-55505669515668296522013-06-12T18:21:00.002+01:002013-06-12T18:28:24.364+01:00Women who wrote Gardens; Notes on Dorothy Elmhirst; a Writer in her Garden <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdzfImdz_btXiFEV8GiH2yTZyQok_ReHxTftDIhNquYuvA_XuZVit3pkiXJOCS7kNMlXW2zAdl-r1ofD8KJYfCH7wbK3hAFXHqWXZt9fwZQ0y66d0atYMd0PDWYcp2jPFV0nT1A/s1600/1866698_95f6ff0a_213x160.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdzfImdz_btXiFEV8GiH2yTZyQok_ReHxTftDIhNquYuvA_XuZVit3pkiXJOCS7kNMlXW2zAdl-r1ofD8KJYfCH7wbK3hAFXHqWXZt9fwZQ0y66d0atYMd0PDWYcp2jPFV0nT1A/s400/1866698_95f6ff0a_213x160.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif;">Dartington Hall Gardens<br /> © Copyright <a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/12147" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator" title="View profile">Tom Jolliffe</a> and licensed for reuse under this <a class="nowrap" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" rel="license" style="white-space: nowrap;">Creative Commons Licence</a></b></td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span>As cultural text <a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/66/101066044/" target="_blank">Dorothy Elmhirst’</a>s garden at <a href="http://www.dartington.org/grounds-and-gardens" target="_blank">Dartington Hall</a> may be the quintessential Devonian garden. I label it as ‘her’ garden purposely; Dorothy’s husband Leonard, who was perhaps the person most qualified to so designate his wife, called it thus. Friends of the Elmhirsts said that the garden 'always occupied a more central place in her thoughts than in his ... that while she spoke of 'our garden' he would normally refer to it .... as 'your garden'.<br />
Dorothy planned and described her garden in such a way that both garden and her diary or notebook-texts exemplify and are perfect examples of what you might call the paradox of 'garden as text’ and ‘text as garden’. Both journal and garden appear equally important in Dorothy's gardening-life. As she creates her garden, she elaborates her notes and together she and they move in and out of the Dartington garden landscapes, creating a harmonic aesthetic; a synthesis of pattern, colour, movement, narrative, composition, context, symbol, figuration, and shape:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>‘I walked today to Staverton Vicarage and back. Three things took my eye, the maroon tone of the alders against the deep blue of the river by Staverton Bridge; the shining faces of periwinkle peeking out from the hedgerows ... and white Arabis climbing over the rocky ledge of a cottage garden in full bloom, with white and purple crocuses above – a lovely combination.//I’ve lost my heart to the white Erythronium like a large open star.’</i></blockquote>
Elmhirst was able to take and work the signifying tools that made her garden speak its wisdom silently, quietly, so to be absorbed into the internal mind-texts of generations of artists, musicians, writers. How many poets have sat in the ‘Sunny Border’, which was apparently Dorothy’s most favourite garden, contemplating, creating or revising poems?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>‘I have always had to keep the colours here quiet and restrained – grey foliage plants, cream, pale yellow day lilies, blues and purples when I can find them, It is the quieter colours that suit our garden best, I think.’</i></blockquote>
How many people have walked and discussed the draft of a new poem with another writer, whilst they subconsciously absorb this garden’s subliminal essence? I know I have.<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
In terms of self-identity or self definition, though calling herself ‘gardener’, I don’t believe Dorothy Elmhirst would have determined herself as ‘author’ or ‘writer’. I remember coming across a statement commenting that in effect 'her [Dorothy's] collected works are non-existent', which begs the interesting question, why not? Her words, just like the identities of plants, trees and flowers she figuratively strews on the blank sheets of her notebook pages, disperse, then grow and thrive intimately in the reader’s mind:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>‘December – Heart lifting day after rain. Raindrops hanging along small branches like tiny silver bells ... I love Cotoneaster simonsii. It retains its tiny red and yellow leaves, and with orange berries it gives effect of stained glass (82)</i><i>January – Yesterday, I studied buds – Lady Alive Fitzwilliam is about the loveliest of the Rhodos – somewhat like an azalea bud – crimson folds edged with white. Then Sorbus sargentiana is fascinating – sticky crimson buds with long antennae. Magnolias have sheaths of mouse-grey fur around their buds and Davidia has nuts that hang by crimson cords ... Strange light on everything today – with white earth and dark sky. The planes looked tawny and the beeches and oaks very dark grey – all the values were changed as if under the spell of an eclipse.’ </i></blockquote>
In her account of the impulse behind the development of the gardens Elmhirst describes its formation and shape in terms suggestive of landscape as text:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>‘... the natural contours of the land, the shapes, the essential form that lay underneath everything else – how could we intensify these shapes and make them count? Then the trees ... How could we uncover those great trunks and show them off in their great nobility and beauty? Lastly the discovery and embellishment of architectural and historical features. Some we had to uncover, some to release, some to reveal and some to emphasise...’</i></blockquote>
At one and the same time, she is weaving a narration in and with her writing, relating a story about Dartington’s garden’s history as a signifying system and as well, about its site within the context of the Devonshire scenery:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>‘Then came the question of the landscape around us. Should we shut ourselves off from it or extend and open out into it? Some gardens that are not in lovely country, feel they must concentrate on the within and shut themselves inside their surroundings. But here I feel that, to the East and the South, the sea, which is so near, is rolling in upon us, and is suggested by the rolling green and wooded hills around us. So we set out to open up new vistas into the distant country.’</i></blockquote>
One thread runs into, then merges with the other, until they become indistinguishable.<br />
<br />
One of the many interrelated narrative weavings Dorothy fostered was her gardening and written links with others. For, as with many gardening women Dorothy’s work and writing extends outwards to other women. In particular, her friend, the landscape designer <a href="http://www.beatrixfarrandsociety.org/">Beatrix Farrand </a>contributed to the development of <a href="http://www.dartington.org/archive/" target="_blank">Dartington Hall's </a> garden; Farrand's work there focused especially on the ‘head of the valley’, Dartington’s wilderness area, which with her professional input became the so-called ‘Woodland’, the part of the garden the Elmhirsts referred to as its ‘backbone’. Farrand’s extensive letters to Dorothy Elmhirst on the subject of the garden crossed back and forth across the Atlantic.<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br />
Layers of garden and gardening at Dartington have reflected and encapsulated the chronological slices of time, just as layerings of writings have been set upon the Devonian land. The garden context of Dartington is shared by the literary context of the written <i>oeuvre</i> contributed by Devon’s own women writers:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i> ‘beneath the worn out surface lay an extraordinarily dramatic landscape setting ... When they came here the grounds were neglected and overgrown with weeds. The shrubberies reflected Victorian taste, the tiltyard was a pattern of formal flower beds ... a coombe with terraces flowing into a wider river valley, whose folds drifted away south-eastwards to the sea ... It became a matter of freeing the form of the gardens from entanglement; there was never any question of imposing a design upon the landscape.’</i></blockquote>
<br />
Dartington has often seemed to me as though the archetypal Devonian site for the imaginary mode. As the inspiratrice of music, art and dreams and as icon of Devonian culture, 'she' is a repository binding the arts, the past, place and community. Dartington Hall and its gardens is a temenos for my whole project of finding, revitalising and recognising that scattered corpus of texts/names /places that have contributed to the county’s as yet unacknowledged and, what has seemed to me carelessly abandoned, body of women’s written work.<br />
Perhaps, after reading this short piece one or two people will decide to go in search of Dorothy Elmhirst's gardening journals and to stroll in her beautiful gardens, at Dartington.<br />
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Quotations from Dorothy's garden journal are taken from Reginald Snell,<br />
<i>From the Bare Stem; Making Dorothy Elmhirst's Garden at Dartington Hall; Devon Books, 1989.</i></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-39837078983692343012013-05-11T19:16:00.000+01:002019-02-08T10:57:50.061+00:00Gardening Women Who Wrote; The Parker Circle of Saltram<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Also See Wo<a href="http://newdevonbookfindsaway.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">men Write in the Devon Landscape</a></span></div>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2VsTj3hjuLrbk3Q0yxNaZwRqU3NtVhhPLynd8vZizXmWgghHjqmPUc6cndlJ1vIG_E4zt4aPmj3qskEMMsn2VIqSkjpsRYNjBXGtFn5Ec7u7gHuMfEgNLL0xpfUY3Kpwpza0p1Q/s1600/in+saltram+garden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2VsTj3hjuLrbk3Q0yxNaZwRqU3NtVhhPLynd8vZizXmWgghHjqmPUc6cndlJ1vIG_E4zt4aPmj3qskEMMsn2VIqSkjpsRYNjBXGtFn5Ec7u7gHuMfEgNLL0xpfUY3Kpwpza0p1Q/s400/in+saltram+garden.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Strolling through Saltram's Gardens</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Saltram was chosen to represent Norland Hall, on the set of the 1995 film
version of <i>Sense and Sensibility</i>, on the basis of its prevailing rural
tranquillity, although the estate is not near Exeter, as Jane Austen specified in her
novel. Saltram, mise-en-scène, for Austen’s novels is not too dissonant though,
for the writer was acquainted with Frances, Countess of Morley, who was one of
the cluster of women from the Parker family who, over a couple of centuries,
inhabited this place - Catherine, Theresa Parker, Anne Robinson, Frances
herself, Theresa Villiers, and others.<b> </b>Though their presence once upon a
time was all pervasive, in the here and now of history and National Trust
infiltration, the Parker women have become quite elusive. Not erased; but I find as I am
guided through the elaborately re-constructed rooms, that for the most part,
past female presence at Saltram has to be found in gaps, spaces, tucked away in
shadowy corners - between pieces of furniture, on faded wall-paper, within the
frames of scenes in little pictures along dark corridors, on plaques in the
garden. For, the house, like the library is predominantly masculine.<br />
<strong>…</strong>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU6uB-7AUpvxtTaV7nWDUdWQOF6eP95x4VErUgaMuUQcEg48GWGljWB777N8KqdaxNmk4RNsBQyHEROCj4TtqQxoT_e4v-ClZ6x9OGOXX9fBEAtLw9Q1d6AScZ49Fu65YT-sHFzA/s1600/saltram.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU6uB-7AUpvxtTaV7nWDUdWQOF6eP95x4VErUgaMuUQcEg48GWGljWB777N8KqdaxNmk4RNsBQyHEROCj4TtqQxoT_e4v-ClZ6x9OGOXX9fBEAtLw9Q1d6AScZ49Fu65YT-sHFzA/s400/saltram.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the gardens at Saltram</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Women of the Parker family, from Saltram, appear to have been responsible for
the creation of its still renowned gardens. Whether the evidential material in
the archives corresponds to the actual lived lives of these individuals in their
estates I do not know; perhaps it is just the fact of more archives having been
preserved at Saltram than at other estates. But, it does appear to be women from
the Parker circle who have left the richest legacy of written material in the Devonshire archives.
The lives of the network of women from the Parker family of Saltram are deeply
intertwined with the landscape and gardens at that estate. I have not yet come
across any comparable archival collection relevant to female gardens and
gardening in the county. The many of their letters now lying in archives
indicate that their gardens and gardenings, their selves and writerly identities
are intricately bound together. The Saltram women’s correspondence frequently
materialises using the language of plants, and conversely, their actual gardens
are often represented by and interpreted as intricately worked texts. The Saltram women’s importance to Devon’s lost
literary history of women goes way beyond the parameters of gardening per se. the following is noted as introduction to the Parker archive at the <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=028-1259&cid=0#" target="_blank">Plymouth and West Devon Record Office</a>:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>‘whilst the letters contain much detail about the Parkers and their estate at
Saltram, they also have a wider significance. The letter writers (particularly
in the later letters) were often prominent politicians and literary figures. The
letters describe national as well as local events, contain political and
cultural comment. The letters are particularly valuable for the insight they
give into social attitudes, attitudes to women, class and family life, they also
contain much detail about lifestyles and such topics as travel, medicine and
fashion ... ‘
</b></span><br />
<br />
It is possible to begin to acknowledge these women’s
presence at Saltram, retrieve them from its darkly conforming rooms. Though once
at the heart and hub of local and national society, chock-full of vibrant wit
and artistic and aesthetic sensibility; though once they sat at tables, away
from glaring summer sun in their summer-houses to write letters, novels, poetry, they are now more or less condemned
to the margins of their property. Their forgotten voices make occasional entrances when they are mentioned in a book. <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gKOCAAAAIAAJ&q=%E2%80%98remarkable+women+associated+with+Saltram+in+the+course+of+the+eighteenth+century&dq=%E2%80%98remarkable+women+associated+with+Saltram+in+the+course+of+the+eighteenth+century&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WhaOUZvcKKTu0gXg-oGIDA&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA" target="_blank">Women's Domain</a> for instance, acknowledges the ‘remarkable women associated with Saltram in the course
of the eighteenth century’. And, inside the house one or two ephemera, such as
Catherine Lady Parker’s writing desk, remind the visitor that some of the
house’s previous residents were women of culture.<br />
<br />
One of the voices you may be aware of whilst visiting Saltram and its garden
is that of a woman who wasn’t from the Parker family. The diarist Fanny Burney, who
visited Saltram in 1789, as part of the entourage of George III, has a vantage
point, ‘<a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/176830" target="_blank">Fanny's Bower</a>’, named after her, which is labelled on a plaque outside.
Burney, both garden lover and ardent diary compiler, loved the Saltram garden
and voiced her response to it: <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>... I spent the time very serenely in my favourite wood ... The wood here is truly enchanting; the paths on the slant down to the water ... and it abounds in seats of all sorts. Today was devoted to general quiet; and I spent all I could of it in my sweet wood, reading the ‘Art of Contentment’, a delightful old treatise, by the author of ‘The Whole Duty of Man’, which I have found in the Saltram library.’ (See <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SnsVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq=I+spent+the+time+very+serenely+in+my+favourite+wood&source=bl&ots=AnjJfwfIbK&sig=gok8T5z16kc4FVNLDPZNFWfA4c8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JheOUarNDOK80QWXEg&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=I%20spent%20the%20time%20very%20serenely%20in%20my%20favourite%20wood&f=false" target="_blank">Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay</a>)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b> </span> Burney was evidently head over heels and besotted with the
accomplishment of her own literary activities, her reading and her
journal-keeping and with the enjoyment of Saltram’s garden space as cultural
document, to be interpreted as a central site/sight of meditative pleasure.Her pleasure within the deep recesses of Saltram’s garden was shared by, but
could have been quite different from that of the women in the Parker family, who
may have been split between developing their own literary skills and devoting
their attentions to the construction and enhancement of the garden itself. For,
several of them were evidently intensely participatory in both. Although all
these women were from the upper echelon of society and likely to have been
privileged in that that their time would have been spent largely in pursuit of
their own favoured activities and hobbies, they may have experienced a conflict
in their loyalties to the dual pursuits of writing and gardening.
<br />
<br />
There are complex intra-relationships between the women, their involvement
with Saltram’s garden and their writing activities, which as well as prolific
letters, included fiction, biographies and poetry. Here's a cluster of little
snippets from the Devon archives summarising Saltram letters amongst women of the
Parker circle; they illustrate their exchange of information about their impact
on the estate’s gardens:
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Letter from Anne Robinson: News of visitors to Saltram and of the arrival by
barge of trees for the garden; Letter from Anne Robinson: news of the orange
trees in the greenhouse; Letter from Anne Robinson: how she passes her time and
the changes she is making to the gardens: Theresa Robinson, daughter of Lord
Grantham RE Frances CofM Theresa Villliers: letters to sister in law Frances
CofM, 1841: Enquiries after the cost and productivity of Saltram's garden to
compare with that of The Grove; Letter from Barbarina, Lady Dacre: Sends thanks
for present of melon seeds.
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>And here, a sample from a batch of correspondence which demonstrate how
closely engaged some of the Parker women were with literary endeavour:
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Letter from Barbarina, Lady Dacre, desires copies of [Frances's] poem Irina;
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Letter from Barbarina, Lady Dacre comments on Frances's love of theatricals;
account of the Charades she organizes for her granddaughters, written by herself
and performed before family; visitors and servants;
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Letter from Frances, Lady Morley to Mary Berry. Her pleasure at Miss Berry's
enjoyment of her writings; sends Miss Berry a collection of her work; Notebook
of poetry belonging to [Frances, Lady Morley] including: a poem on the beauty of
Longleat House, Wilts; a verse dedicated to herself and Lady Granville
concerning the lives of Lord Morley and Lord Granville; story partly in verse
called 'The honest Drover or the parson in jeopardy'; a poem on leaving
Chatsworth House, Derbys; a poem 'An Expedition up the Tamar; Page of poems
relating to the sea and insects [by Frances, Lady Morley] Verse concerning an
unnamed lady's writing skill [probably that of Frances, Lady Morley], by Sydney,
Lady Morgan Thoughts' short stories , incomplete.[ii] (See <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=028-1259&cid=0#0" target="_blank">The National Archives</a>)</b></span><br />
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Public/Documents/Devon%20book%20reinvented%20%20%20novel/#_edn2" name="_ednref2">...</a><br />
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Public/Documents/Devon%20book%20reinvented%20%20%20novel/#_edn2" name="_ednref2"><br /></a>
Saltram was built for John and Lady Catherine Parker in the 1740s. Catherine,
the daughter of the 1st Earl of Paulet, is recognised as the person responsible for initiating
the Parker family’s transfer from <a href="http://www.boringdonhall.co.uk/" target="_blank">Boringdon Hall (now a hotel)</a> to <a href="http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/saltram/" target="_blank">Saltram</a> and for the
establishment and development of the family’s new estate there. Not only did
Catherine supervise and design the estate’s new building, ‘she also furnished
the house ... and was ‘responsible for beginning the patronage of art that
brought to Saltram its wealth of fine paintings, porcelain and furniture’. (See <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gKOCAAAAIAAJ&q=he+also+furnished+the+house+...+and+was+%E2%80%98responsible+for+beginning+the+patronage+of+art+that+brought+to+Saltram+its+wealth+of+fine+paintings,+porcelain+and+furniture&dq=he+also+furnished+the+house+...+and+was+%E2%80%98responsible+for+beginning+the+patronage+of+art+that+brought+to+Saltram+its+wealth+of+fine+paintings,+porcelain+and+furniture&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WxmOUcvZO4Pu0gWizYDgBA&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA" target="_blank">Women's Domain</a>)<b> </b>Presumably, Catherine’s passion for her new home
extended to the initial formation and planning of its gardens, although I have
not found a record to confirm this, and in any case according to various records little is known of the original garden. Perhaps it was Catherine who was responsible for the ‘creation
of the woodland walk behind the Orangery which is punctuated by stone pedestals
with urns [and] probably dates from the 1740’s’. (See the Saltram Guide.)<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span> The passionate energy displayed by Catherine’s daughter in law, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/the-honourable-theresa-robinson-17441775-mrs-parker-and-h101494">Theresa Robinson/Parker,</a> (the 2nd wife of John Parker, 1st Baron) daughter of the Earl of Grantham and god daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria), who was typically considered as a woman of exceptional gifts, is everywhere evident in and outside Saltram. Correspondence exchanged between her and her brother Lord Grantham and sister Anne provides vivid detail about Theresa’s interaction with the garden, for in one she is noted as having taken responsibility for landscaping the grounds and decorating them with features. In letters to other family members Anne also comments on her sister’s energetic activity. In 1769, the year in which Theresa married John, Anne told a correspondent that her sister had had ‘a planting fitt’ and had ‘planned a new greenhouse or orangery where the present one is as you go to the shrubbery.’( <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SmWNZbnoK8YC&pg=PA238&lpg=PA238&dq=%E2%80%98planned+a+new+greenhouse+or+orangery+where+the+present+one+is+as+you+go+to+the+shrubbery&source=bl&ots=Vm6fm1L8_p&sig=xvVkO2JTgingXaamzCxJmnr0s24&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Li-OUaGFPMWV0AXcloGoBw&ved=0CE0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%98planned%20a%20new%20greenhouse%20or%20orangery%20where%20the%20present%20one%20is%20as%20you%20go%20to%20the%20shrubbery&f=false" target="_blank">See </a><i><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SmWNZbnoK8YC&pg=PA238&lpg=PA238&dq=%E2%80%98planned+a+new+greenhouse+or+orangery+where+the+present+one+is+as+you+go+to+the+shrubbery&source=bl&ots=Vm6fm1L8_p&sig=xvVkO2JTgingXaamzCxJmnr0s24&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Li-OUaGFPMWV0AXcloGoBw&ved=0CE0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%98planned%20a%20new%20greenhouse%20or%20orangery%20where%20the%20present%20one%20is%20as%20you%20go%20to%20the%20shrubbery&f=false" target="_blank">Bourgeois and Aristocratic Cultural Encounters in Garden Art: 1550 - 1850</a>) </i>After its completion between 1773 and 1775, Theresa’s letters express how thrilled she was with her Orangery. Next, she planned the new building's decoration:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>‘I want to have Niche and Statues for the Summer, exposed as it is, to the Sea air, and the Dampness there must be in the Walls, set aside all thoughts of Paintings.’</b></span><br />
<br />
Within two years Theresa was planning a summer house, which would be placed in a site looking over both the estate and the sea, which she must have paused to view as she frequented her estate: ‘Pray do not forget the castle ... something must be done upon that spot’, she noted in a letter to her brother. The octagonal summer-house was constructed at the western edge of the garden. The castle was intended as an eating-room, a shelter on a perambulation of the garden and especially as a viewing point for the pastoral views of grazing cattle, which would then have been viewed as a vision of ‘arcadia’.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFbcA6r5jtTIk6ouR4gOTDANWnajXbcn36cqpGZV2QQVxl8P0An1ZDcoGs7Geqy7coGj7It72ok1cmfj6rns7HjGoJgAP0egWoGAq_K229i9rebMhoXx5wS52BSCf8rABJCWUfCw/s1600/WP_000202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFbcA6r5jtTIk6ouR4gOTDANWnajXbcn36cqpGZV2QQVxl8P0An1ZDcoGs7Geqy7coGj7It72ok1cmfj6rns7HjGoJgAP0egWoGAq_K229i9rebMhoXx5wS52BSCf8rABJCWUfCw/s320/WP_000202.jpg" width="271" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside the Summer-House at Saltram</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
A year later, in 1772, Theresa was apparently getting impatient after an apparent delay in the completion of the planting of the 220 acre deer park, which at that time served to provide the estate with its external swirl of natural landscape. Her sister Anne told a correspondent that Theresa was ‘fully resolved not to let another year slip but [to plant] the whole top of the Hill immediately.’<br />
<br /></div>
As well as keen garden designer and landscaper Theresa was also an avid plantswoman, and passionate letter-writer. Sadly though she only lived for 5-6 years after her marriage. After her death her unmarried sister <a href="http://www.nationaltrustimages.org.uk/image/62038" target="_blank">Anne Robinson</a> came to live at Saltram to supervise care of the two children. Anne’s important role in the development of the estate is suggested by the following archival note in the Devon archive:<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>‘Until 1793, the majority of letters come from Anne Robinson and the Parker children at Saltram. As such they give information about Saltram House, garden and estate and the lifestyles of those who lived there.’</b></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 72pt;">
<br /></div>
It was Anne who took over the supervision of her sister's children, but also management of the estate, both inside and out. She seems to have taken up projects that her sister had begun and completed them. In September 1785, evidently feeling that she was at least partially influential in ongoing work, Anne wrote on the subject of the hill on the Hardwick Plantation that ‘we are going again to repair the plantation on top of the Hill, which has suffered much by the severe winter and dry summer ... about one in three have died.’ By November, she was reporting that ‘We have almost finished planting the hill’, and by the following February noted that ‘The new approach to the Plantation goes on, but not as fast as it did in the late fine weather ... luckily all the planting was over the day before the first frost began'. (See <a href="http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/nps_0373b_pt1.pdf" target="_blank">The Setting of Saltram Park</a>)<br />
<br />
The active and influential responsibilities taken on by both Robinson sisters in the organisation and control of the wider Saltram estate seems to counter the typically well-differentiated and gendered roles displayed in household management by C18 aristocracy. One writer explains:<br />
<b style="font-size: small;"><br /></b>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">‘There was separation of management within the landscape garden that reflects the divide between male and female spheres of activity; the flower garden and pleasure ground being closely tied to the domestic rituals of the house – the daily round of sewing, painting, strolling, chatting and gardening – as well as the domestic economy of the household. These jejeune and edifying activities were largely separated from the world of the hunt and estate management.’(<i>See <a href="http://www.doaks.org/resources/publications/doaks-online-publications/garden-and-landscape-studies/bourgeois/bourgch9.pdf" target="_blank">Bourgeois and Aristocratic Cultural Encounters in Garden Art, 1550–1850</a>)</i></span></b><br />
<br />
On the other hand maybe it was not unusual for C18 and C19 aristocratic women to be actively involved within their home surroundings, as well as skilled and cultured initiators of manuscripts. Perhaps the problem is that documentation of their interactions with garden and texts is not there. Or, more likely, they are there, lying waiting, still to be found, amongst the letters and correspondence foraged away in archives.<br />
<br />
The Parker women’s involvement at Saltram did not stop, but continued down through the family line. <a href="http://www.historicalportraits.com/Gallery.asp?Page=Item&ItemID=1279&Desc=Theresa-Parker,-later-Mrs.-George-Villiers-%7C-Henry-Edridge" target="_blank">Theresa Parker (Villiers)</a>, 1775-1856, sister of John Parker, 2nd Lord Boringdon, 1st Earl of Morley, spent most of her early life with her aunt Anne Robinson at Saltram, following the death of both her parents whilst she was still a child. She married <a href="http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/871117" target="_blank">George Villiers</a> in 1798. Theresa, seemingly the most active writer of letters in the family, was said to be an excellent translator, and aware of this the painter Reynolds presented her with a copy of<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnaud_Berquin" target="_blank"> Armand Berquin’</a>s L’Ami des Enfants, when she was ten. Theresa’s letters indicate a lively intelligence and humour and give glimpses of her childhood. Correspondence dated after soon after her marriage mentions the garden of her new home suggesting that she shared her mother’s, aunt’s and grandmother’s interest in gardens and gardening:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>‘1799: News of the carriage and planting of trees and other alterations to the [Slyes Hill] gardens; plants trees in the gardens [at Slyes Hill]; 1800 news of her gardening 1800 the improvement of the gardens;1802 account of a visit to Ranelagh Gardens.’[<a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=028-1259&cid=2-14-53#2-14-53" target="_blank">Parker of Saltram, Correspondence</a>]</b></span><br />
<br />
Theresa Villiers’ sister in law <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/frances-talbot-17821857-countess-of-morley-101659" target="_blank">Frances Talbot, Countess of Morley</a>/Lady Borington, 1782-1857, daughter of a Norfolk surgeon, became John 2nd and 1st Earl of Morley/ Lord Borington’s 2nd wife. The dual gardening/writing occupations of the Parker women were especially notable during the period in which Frances was at Saltram, for she participated in a thriving circle of literary people. Frances was acclaimed in her own right for her literary endeavour and at one time was even rumoured to have written some of Jane Austen's novels. Her niece Maria’s husband Thomas Lister also pastiched Austen’s work. The Gentleman’s magazine described Frances as ‘a woman of strong mind and considerable literary and artistic abilities’, whilst the Atheneum noted that she had ‘sufficiency of grace and talent to have given their writer a fair place among the authoresses had she taken pains and time to try for it.’ <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Cg6Jn410aCIC&pg=PA483&dq=sufficiency+of+grace+and+talent+to+have+given+their+writer+a+fair+place+among+the+authoresses+had+she+taken+pains+and+time+to+try+for+it&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9nOOUaXuF8ON0AXZiYCwAw&ved=0CEQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=sufficiency%20of%20grace%20and%20talent%20to%20have%20given%20their%20writer%20a%20fair%20place%20among%20the%20authoresses%20had%20she%20taken%20pains%20and%20time%20to%20try%20for%20it&f=false" target="_blank">(British Women Poets of the Romantic Era</a>) and several of her poems have recently been published.<br />
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Frances Talbot was keenly involved within networks and circles that included other contemporary women also known for their writing. Several of them were close family members. Her niece (through marriage), <a href="http://lordbyron.cath.lib.vt.edu/persRec.php?choose=PersRefs&selectPerson=MaLewis1865" target="_blank">Maria Theresa Lewis</a>, published biographies of Lord Clarendon and edited the journals of Mary Berry and at least one textual project appears to have been a co-written enterprise. There is some dispute as to the authorship of the C19 novel,<a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vCtLAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=dacre&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BoWOUfPnEamk0QXvwYCoBg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=dacre&f=false" target="_blank"> <i>Dacre</i></a>, published in 1834, which was said to have been written by Maria Theresa and edited by her aunt Frances Talbot, the Countess. However, when the novel was reviewed in the Edinburgh Review, it was praised as Frances’ work. A recent view suggests that disguising the author with ‘such subterfuge was common in the period and the book was widely known to be her [Countess of Morley] work’.[xiv] The Edinburgh Review remarked that her novel[s] introduced ‘graphic’ and ‘picturesque’ ... ‘sketches of natural scenery’. Another recent critic notes that the Countess’ novels ‘attained considerable popularity both in England and America’.(See more information about Frances Talbot/Countess of Morley in <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Cg6Jn410aCIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=women+poets+of+the+romantic+era&hl=en&sa=X&ei=A4aOUdbWH6mj0QXbmYH4Cw&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=women%20poets%20of%20the%20romantic%20era&f=false" target="_blank">British Women Poets of the Romantic Era</a>) The Countess of Morley’s contribution to the lost canon of C19 Devon women’s literature seems apparent as indeed does that of the wider circle of women of the Parker family of Saltram. There is much still to be rescued from archives so as to restore their literary reputation within the context of the county's cultural history.<br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24064414.post-33467200321160005072013-02-02T17:10:00.001+00:002013-02-03T10:16:40.790+00:00A Poem's Lost Past: Sylvia Plath & the 'Eavesdropper'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><i><i><i>'Toad-stone! Sister-bitch! Sweet neighbor!'</i></i></i></i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkawB_aJxL5-ZghPQeIpnC5zw3YR9fP_0yOaLd_o6BOo9GcVcdJgeAggU7_UaQv4uRmkEcwi9nQupOJX1rooLFNpbZ5rSdcS3Y7aAraTrBw_jNjC7uJeu7AvdOv1eIH1IFyghYow/s1600/000_0254.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkawB_aJxL5-ZghPQeIpnC5zw3YR9fP_0yOaLd_o6BOo9GcVcdJgeAggU7_UaQv4uRmkEcwi9nQupOJX1rooLFNpbZ5rSdcS3Y7aAraTrBw_jNjC7uJeu7AvdOv1eIH1IFyghYow/s320/000_0254.jpg" width="304" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Row of gravestones in North Tawton churchyard<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 13px;">...' I was a child walking past the church-yard, the rows of graves, then turning right to walk the few steps up the cobbled lane leading to her house, waiting for my aunt, my godmother, to open her door. The woman coming down the slope had a pram, a little girl trotted beside her – I didn’t intuit her later fame, she’s standing, gazing at me, through me, the still-child – neither knowing the real-life, after-life manuscripts: texts that would inevitably link us as witnesses of the sacred landscape. I was not aware of the word-bind she was interring in a poem which hyper-linked into my family, my world, perhaps drafting that very day, so that unbeknown to her, my strong-minded, exotic godmother would be embalmed for posterity as nosy-parker'...</span></blockquote>
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It seems that with the forthcoming Plath anniversary everything I look at on the web, or in newspapers, seems to have yet another revelatory book or feature fiercely debating the various arguments that still swirl round the poet. Apparently, even Hughes' widow is to publish her own 'side of the story' before she gets too old. Watching this onslaught of new material has prompted me to think about when it is best to keep a secret and when it's (is it ever) the right time to tell what you know? There's a fine balance between revelation and concealment. Ever since the moment when I re-read a particularly vituperative late poem by Sylvia Plath some twenty years ago and with a shocking click of revelation realised that its female subject was someone I knew well, a family member, I have struggled with that conflict. It was after all not the same as having Jill, our Old English sheepdog, who features in Plath's journals as 'queer old zombie-dog' (See in <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Journals-Sylvia-Plath-Transcribed-Manuscripts/dp/0571205216" target="_blank">The Journals of Sylvia Plath</a>).</div>
At the time the person concerned was well and, though in her late seventies, vibrantly alive. Irene (Rene) Sampson, was my aunt and godmother. After she moved to North Tawton during 1962 Rene's - and later her husband Herbert's - path of fate took her - and them - to become (for a while) Sylvia Plath's (and later Ted Hughes') closest next door neighbours in North Tawton.<b> </b>I can not recall exactly when in 1962 Rene moved into the cottage below Court Green, except that it must have been a little while before Hughes and Plath separated. I'm not sure how near in real-time aunt's move back into the town, (where she had already spent some years for both she and Herbert were from Devon), corresponded with the final paragraph of Plath's<a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4V7HOuom_I4C&dq=plath+journals&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wrEHUZf7L-uW0QX34oH4Ag&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAQ" target="_blank"> journal</a>s (Appendix 15 - which is a 'compilation of notes that Plath kept on her Devon neighbours ... during the first six months of 1962' - See Trinidad, <a href="http://www.iun.edu/~nwadmin/plath/vol3_Supp/Trinidad.pdf" target="_blank">Hidden in Plain Sight</a>),<b> </b>for the journal's ending - as presently published - suggests that after the death of Percy Keys Plath was curious as to who would be her next near neighbours:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Rose said she heard a couple outside our house "Oh but it has a thatch and is much too big for us". She came out. Were they wanting a house? Yes, they were retiring from London and wanted a cottage. Had come to North Tawton instead of South Tawton, by mistake. How strange says Rose, I am wanting to sell this cottage. O it is just what we want, say the people. Now I wonder, will they come?</blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRCAtmZok_yvaaNsVW40URBYSVqSrdHXGENy9TsrQl5TyIaW_23PyBkyLpHhg_ZIWkrB4zFLswP_8EtD1kPxEF0oluI0UbJP5-6FE12csUzKVuPJuC9n7Mq-xhJ5853vWHmytbRw/s1600/Image+(9).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRCAtmZok_yvaaNsVW40URBYSVqSrdHXGENy9TsrQl5TyIaW_23PyBkyLpHhg_ZIWkrB4zFLswP_8EtD1kPxEF0oluI0UbJP5-6FE12csUzKVuPJuC9n7Mq-xhJ5853vWHmytbRw/s200/Image+(9).jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rene & Herbert Sampson<br />
outside 4 Court Green<br />
1990's</td></tr>
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<b> </b> Maybe the poet made up this story, or altered its facts, or that particular couple did not move in to 4 Court Green, for, other than occasional holidays home, Herbert and Rene had been abroad since the mid fifties, and as they were both local people would not have muddled South and North Tawton. They had spent several years in Ghana, where my Uncle worked as a civil engineer and surveyor,<b> </b>and returned to England early in 1962 to find a home for their later retirement. Herbert soon took up another post for the Crown Agents in Sarawak, whilst Rene settled into her new home in North Tawton. She had found the tropical climate hard to cope with but was to join him in Sarawak later in 1963, before their eventual retirement to the Court Green cottage, in 1968. In his own memoirs written much later Herbert said of their move to the town:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
... we thought it advisable to make provision for our eventual retirement, so we started looking round for a house to buy ... We looked at so many but could not find the right place ... I had to come to North Tawton for some reason and I saw Miss P. and mentioned we were trying to find a house. She said 'What about the cottage next to Court Greet? Mrs Key is leaving. So I went along to see Mrs Key who said her husband had died recently and she was going to return to London ... I thought the house was not bad and made arrangements for Rene to come to see it. We bought it, thinking it would be suitable as a temporary abode while we were in Sarawak, but we have been here ever since ... (W. H. Sampson, <i>My Memoirs, privately printed</i>).</blockquote>
I do not know exactly when Sylvia and Rene first met. I lived in North Tawton at the time, but as I was still not yet a teenager I do not recall everything with precise detail. But, from conversations I've had since with Rene, I do know that after Hughes had gone she and Sylvia met quite regularly - probably until the poet moved to London.<br />
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<b> </b> I was very fond of my handsome and rather exotic godmother. She was a warm, lively character, with great presence, a vibrant fashion sense, a sassy sense of humour and cracking laugh. Her husband Herbert recalled how he'd noticed her special 'character' in their school days, when she would tease him in the school corridors. She was always the doting and caring aunt as far as I was concerned, a wonderful cook and perfect hostess who in her younger days loved to entertain as well as going out to wine and dine. I did not witness the 'other side' of her feisty personality, though I know that sometimes the sparks could fly if someone rubbed her up the wrong way<b>. </b>I loved to visit Rene after school in the latter part of 1962, during the months she was in the town, just before my family moved away the following year and was sad that her move to our town had happened just before our departure.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgihZ6ZbLCog4-mPhtDcwOarzG11a28Fu-DLimYoqV162Mho9cdOlLCJ466P2qd-v-pylR2la1a70GrQBDKZY1McSrCBZLTSaFzFD7PaE_pRVLhE8gyeq4dEUcp5Li977LIevPQ8g/s1600/herbert+and+rene+wedding+close+up.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgihZ6ZbLCog4-mPhtDcwOarzG11a28Fu-DLimYoqV162Mho9cdOlLCJ466P2qd-v-pylR2la1a70GrQBDKZY1McSrCBZLTSaFzFD7PaE_pRVLhE8gyeq4dEUcp5Li977LIevPQ8g/s200/herbert+and+rene+wedding+close+up.jpeg" width="142" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rene and Herbert<br />
on their Wedding-Day</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: center;"> </span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;"> Over the years I have been unable to decide as to whether to make public the link between 'Eavesdropper' and my aunt. I wasn't (and still am not) certain that I could do Rene justice in the face of such a vitriolic poem, nor, given its insulting nature, whether she would wish me to. I was also a little worried that telling of her connection with 'Eavesdropper' might drive a host of Plath researchers to my aunt's door. One thing I was always sure of was that Rene never realised that she featured as the main subject of any poem - let alone one by Plath; my disappointment was that I dare not tell her, because I knew she would be hurt, shocked and angry. If only Plath had penned a more complimentary poem I mused, as I thought about how I could have shown it to Rene; then I would have been able to tell her how pleased she should feel to be inscribed for posterity within a poem written by one of the most famous poet's last, and now rather infamous poems.</span><br />
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Here is the poem - see in larger print at <a href="http://allpoetry.com/poem/8498233-Eavesdropper-by-Sylvia_Plath" target="_blank">AllPoetry</a>:</div>
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<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Your brother will trim my hedges!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">They darken your house,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Nosy grower,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Mole on my shoulder,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">To be scratched absently,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">To bleed, if it comes to that.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">The stain of the tropics</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Still urinous on you, a sin.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">A kind of bush-stink.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br style="background-color: #f2f2f0; line-height: 18px;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">You may be local,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">But that yellow!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Godawful!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Your body one</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Long nicotine-finger</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">On which I,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">White cigarette,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Burn, for your inhalation,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Driving the dull cells wild.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br style="background-color: #f2f2f0; line-height: 18px;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Let me roost in you!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">My distractions, my pallors.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Let them start the queer alchemy</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">That melts the skin</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Gray tallow, from bone and bone.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">So I saw your much sicker</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Predecessor wrapped up,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">A six and a half foot wedding-cake.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">And he was not even malicious.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br style="background-color: #f2f2f0; line-height: 18px;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Do not think I don't notice your curtain—</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Midnight, four o'clock,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Lit (you are reading),</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Tarting with the drafts that pass,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Little whore tongue,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Chenille beckoner,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Beckoning my words in—</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">The zoo yowl, the mad soft</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Mirror talk you love to catch me at.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br style="background-color: #f2f2f0; line-height: 18px;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">How you jumped when I jumped on you!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Arms folded, ear cocked,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Toad-yellow under the drop</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">That would not, would not drop</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">In a desert of cow people</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Trundling their udders home</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">To the electric milker, the wifey, the big blue eye</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">That watches, like God, or the sky</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">The ciphers that watch it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br style="background-color: #f2f2f0; line-height: 18px;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">I called.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">You crawled out,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">A weather figure, boggling,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Belge troll, the low</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Church smile</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Spreading itself, like butter.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">This is what I am in for—</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Flea body!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Eyes like mice</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br style="background-color: #f2f2f0; line-height: 18px;" /></span>
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Flicking over my property,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Levering letter flaps,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Scrutinizing the fly</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Of the man's pants</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Dead on the chair back,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Opening the fat smiles, the eyes</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Of two babies</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Just to make sure—</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18px;">Toad-stone! Sister-bitch! Sweet neighbor!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f2f2f0; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
As well as the shocking revelation of 'Eavesdropper' and the realisation that our dog Jill popped up in the journals, there have been other occasions when Plath's texts have acted as a trigger for me to lost and personal childhood secrets; her words have the canny knack of making me snatch breath with a remembering of what is long gone, obliterated in the snows of memory. </div>
Whilst I have informally mentioned the existence of the poem 'Eavesdropper' to a few people, I have not, until now, revealed aunt's identity. I don't know if having read the poem anyone else has hit on the connection. It is possible, but I think unlikely - except that is, for Hughes himself and possibly his daughter and widow. As far as I am aware local people are far more interested in Hughes' work and significance as major poet than they are his first wife's- so much is this the case that I was incredulous, when at a history exhibition held in North Tawton a few years ago, the organisers made him focus of the display, yet completely ignored Plath's very existence.<br />
Anyway, although several concerns have always stopped me in the past, gradually, over the years, I have begun to believe that maybe I should tell what I know of 'Eavesdropper's' connection with my aunt. Now, with the approaching fiftieth anniversary of the poet's death, on February 11th, and with several years passing since the death of Rene and more recently, of Herbert, it seems the appropriate time to set the record straight. Although between them they both share a number of nieces and nephews and their descendants, the couple did not have children of their own, so I do not need to fear any repercussions for either of them from public awareness of the link between person and text. Whilst I have no particular wish to add to the bedlam of extraneous Plath literature at present spilling out from every conceivable source - the so-called 'peanut-crunching crowd' (See 'Lady Lazurus') - several considerations have begun to sway me. For one thing, I've occasionally come across critical commentary which refers to the poem and come to with a jolt, after realising that even basic facts are incorrect and that, even with a degree of poetic licence there are significant gaps in the telling of the subject's side of the story; I believe these may lead to misinterpretations about the poem. For instance, in <i><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PynC8TFoqOYC&pg=PA299&dq=old+man+whose+funeral+was+described+in+'Berck+Plage'&hl=en&sa=X&ei=k6QCUZaZEIWa1AXbnIDwBA&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=brother%20and%20sister%20couple&f=false" target="_blank">Method and Madness</a>,</i> published as long ago as 1976, Edward Butshcer, noting the 'harshness' of 'Eavesdropper' and the obvious fact that its target is a female neighbour, states that the subject is 'half of an aging brother and sister couple who now occupied the cottage where the old man whose funeral was described in 'Berck Plage' used to live' <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PynC8TFoqOYC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=Eavesdropper&f=false" target="_blank">(</a><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PynC8TFoqOYC&pg=PA299&dq=old+man+whose+funeral+was+described+in+'Berck+Plage'&hl=en&sa=X&ei=k6QCUZaZEIWa1AXbnIDwBA&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=brother%20and%20sister%20couple&f=false" target="_blank">Method and Madness)</a>. So, fact number one, Plath's new neighbours in 1962 after the death of Percy Key were not brother and sister, but husband and wife. Fact number two, whilst bordering on middle-age - for Rene must have been just fifty in '62 - neither she or her husband were exactly aging.<br />
I've also recently noticed that a few researchers appear to be making explicit reference to 'Eavesdropper', and in particular understand that at least one of them has referred to the subject of the poem at a Plath conference (<a href="http://sylviaplathinfo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/sylvia-plath-2012-symposium-day-4-part_27.html" target="_blank">David Trinidad's essay at Sylvia Plath Symposium 2012</a>). I am not in a position to know what was said at that paper, or if my aunt was identified and that is the main reason I have decided to get this piece out there. I am afraid that in the future the matching of poem and person may lead to misconceptions about Rene's personality. Although the 'truth will (probably) out', it may be biased and distorted. I want to make sure that any Plath researcher in the future will have an authentic portrait of Rene<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>.</b> </span>In the process I hope this would re balance the depiction of my aunt's character and personality against the nastiness of the poem, which in future might otherwise poison her name and reputation.<br />
Lastly, I've noticed that, even with the onslaught of new textual material, critics still complain about the lack of referential information pertinent to some of Plath's last poems. In <i><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6bFTS6BcXP4C&pg=PA296&lpg=PA296&dq=%22sylvia+plath%22%2B%22collected+poems%22%2B%22eavesdropper%22&source=bl&ots=VFD8JoMSy-&sig=GdU6Cv8HTLfNgAnt1Kv72fwvM4o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=riABUc6WIeSA0AXv8oCADQ&ved=0CIMBEOgBMAk#v=onepage&q=%22sylvia%20plath%22%2B%22collected%20poems%22%2B%22eavesdropper%22&f=false" target="_blank">A Critical Heritage</a></i> published in 1997, Linda Wagner Martin complained about the lack of decent annotation concerning several of the last poems;<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
'When we come to poems that concern, not Plath's father but her mother, husband, children, friends, or 'the other woman' there are no annotations at all beyond citations from Plath's own BBC commentaries ... What for example, was the situation described so vividly and viciously in 'Lesbos'? ... Who is the 'Sister-Bitch'! Sweet Neighbour' of 'Eavesdropper'?'</blockquote>
More recently, one commentator noted of <i>Ariel</i> that the poems in the collection for which there are no concrete situations tend to 'remain obscure associations on an unexplained theme' and that because of this are less satisfactory (See <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_6xPTdmj5qgC&pg=PA67&dq=plath+eavesdropper&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uU4JUcWEAYWk0AW4jYCICw&ved=0CFEQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=plath%20eavesdropper&f=false" target="_blank">The Cambridge Companion</a>). Though 'Eavesdropper' is not one of the specific poems referred to here, it is equally abstruse.<br />
Apropos Plath studies setting the record straight seems the order of the day. <b>(</b>See <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jan/18/elizabeth-sigmund-bell-jar-sylvia-plath" target="_blank">Interview with Elizabeth Sigmund</a> and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jan/18/olwyn-hughes-sylvia-plath-literary-executor" target="_blank">Interview with Olwyn Hughes</a>). This particularly applies to the last months of the poet's life and to her later poems. For instance, whilst considering a clutch of Plath's final, especially confessional poems written late 1962, one author insists 'there are irresistible pressures to reveal secrets' (<a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Cambridge_Companion_to_Sylvia_Plath.html?id=Mj7Ox9Bmz6IC" target="_blank">Cambridge companion to Sylvia Plath)</a>. 'Eavesdropper' appears in the list ; others are 'Purdah', 'The Other', 'The Jailer' <img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=widgetsamazon-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0060907894" style="border: medium none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />and 'A Secret'. Secrecy versus concealment have been and still are central concerns when the names Hughes and Plath are mentioned. The very essence of Plath's poetic rhetoric is that of the confessional and many of her poems - especially the later ones - have been discussed in terms of the tensions they figure between the pressure to withhold what is known and the contradictory impulse to tell all - and in the case of certain poems (including 'Eavesdropper'), to consider Plath's pointing up of differences in social mores between the US and the UK during the period of the Cold War. One critic sums up: 'there are irrepressible pressures to tell secrets' (Deborah Nelson, see <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:iiYgsCEt5LsJ:danishkada.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/13583173-the-cambridge-introduction-to-sylvia-plath.pdf+&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiuqyMi7MJMb8p8ncn3TG-0_90VarVH9mcwjn1_cSHSkgXuskmScT9nANy2eiq7Gnj9RHqeUh2cCD0e-LU1QSwSHK_IAbYbJGhcaUw-TSN7lc52pvykE4FgAIpuu_RTDTlrokY_&sig=AHIEtbREsigU0qTxR33-4dXN0o3th9IQWw" target="_blank">Cambridge Introduction to Sylvia Plath</a>). Meanwhile, the crux of the still raging furore which plays out in the press and various academic papers centres round the whereabouts of the poet's missing journals and the allegedly lost novel <i>Doubletake:</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
'Readers long for the secrets they would reveal ... the dirt on the break-up that triggered her astounding poetic outpouring' (Trinidad<i>, </i><a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:KKNwPG3b8tUJ:www.iun.edu/~nwadmin/plath/vol3_Supp/Trinidad.pdf+%22plath%22%2B%22eavesdropper%22%2B%22ariel%22&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjEgsxRV54ns1zb6KKEONaNDYY0r20j4j8lxRmND0dP_SedgRraTE7TpAD9hjgjE4xfc4va4oTmHTgPpQDg-yiZbQHPIXtFXE49HtqAEHvEfXRE_Q3-QROJ6g3CQYGzij_iUNPK&sig=AHIEtbSkN9eZnmEmHPXH2XNV0rc0-1-HAw" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Hidden in Plain Sight</a>). </blockquote>
But I still felt uncomfortable about self-revelation and the insistence amongst various critics re the concomitant impulse to read the self in the text. Did I really want to add to the already heaving, frequently junk-pile of material, which obsessively analyses Plath's poetry and its portrayal of woman as poet? As her daughter has complained, 'the clay from her poetic energy was taken up and versions of [my] mother made out of it, invented to reflect only the inventors as if they could possess [my] real, actual mother ...' (Frieda Hughes<b>, </b><a href="http://www.arlindo-correia.com/080405.html" target="_blank">Ariel Takes Flight)</a>.<br />
<b> </b>I didn't.<br />
Yet, increasingly, I realised that I did. I can't stop the plethora of Plath analysis. But I can ease a trace of a lost voice into the cacophony about Plath's final months. A missing piece of jigsaw, which one day might fit into the gap of what is lost of the poet's life in the vanished journals, as well as provide a valid source of information for future annotation and authentic readings of the poem.<br />
<br />
<b> </b> ... Several of the poems that Plath wrote or re-worked afterwards in London were initially drafted in her Devon home. <b>'</b>Eavesdropper' was apparently one of the poems first drafted within nine days of Plath's separation from Hughes, in September 1962. However, one source says that 'Eavesdropper' was first drafted October 15, 1962, on a scrap of paper, whose front contained Hughes' unpublished radio play, <i>The Calm;</i> other drafts were also first written on these scraps, including 'A Secret', (October 10), 'Daddy' 'Medusa', (Oct 16) The Jailer' (Oct 17) 'The Applicant', (Oct 11) 'Lesbos', (Oct 18), and 'Lyonesse' and 'Amnesiac' (Oct 21), which were originally one poem, (see <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=z_aFbYxYl3gC&pg=PA60&dq=plath+eavesdropper&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uzgJUfu4D8HC0QWdh4D4DA&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=plath%20eavesdropper&f=false" target="_blank">Revising Life,</a> Susan Dyne). Other poems first drafted in this period included 'Stopped Dead' (Oct 19), 'The Tour, (Oct 23/25) and 'Winter Trees' (Nov 26).<br />
In many of these late poems local landscapes, people in the district and Court Green's garden features become integral ingredients within the texts’ figurations: the church and graveyard; the yew-tree; the elm trees; farm-animals; the bees; local people; and the ancient Court Green mound. When she left North Tawton in December 1962 Plath took with her to London some of the new drafts that she had written in the last months at Court Green and, according to Hughes, at Christmas time arranged forty of them into a specific sequence, which she formulated as a collection within a black spring binder which she gave a title, <i>Ariel and Other Poems</i>. One source says that on the last day of December 1962, she revised ‘Eavesdropper’ and ‘Sheep in Fog’; during January and the first days of February she wrote ‘Mystic,’ ‘Kindness,’ ‘Gigolo,’ ‘Totem,’ ‘Child,’ ‘The Munich Mannequins,’ ‘Paralytic,’ ‘Words,’ ‘Contusion,’ ‘Edge’ and ‘Balloons’. So, although her last months were spent in the rented London flat, several of these poems suggest that the poet’s mind was still very much occupied with her life left behind in her Devon home. Memories of the place played over and over in the drama of her last weeks. Plath had also begun work on a new novel titled <i>Doubletake</i> (later changed to <i>Double Exposure</i>) and my understanding is that the poems 'Brasilia' and 'Childless Woman' were first drafted during this period. Hughes provides another comment about the genesis of 'Eavesdropper within the context of the later poems:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In late 1962, while the Ariel poems were being written, she corrected and sent off the novel's proofs, and worried over questions of possible libel. The last Ariel poem, "Sheep in Fog," came on December 2nd. This was also the last poem she wrote (except for the unfinished "Eavesdropper") until after the novel was published. It was then the first poem she picked up, on January 28th, when she made the correction that revealed it as the elegy and funeral cortege for the Ariel inspiration. Whereupon it became the first (three more written that same day and all eleven within the next week) of the final group, the true death-songs (Hughes, "<a href="http://www.sylviaplath.de/plath/hughesonsylvia.html">On Sylvia Plath," in </a><a href="http://www.sylviaplath.de/plath/hughesonsylvia.html">Raritan,</a> Vol. 14, No. 2, Fall, 1994, pp. 1-10</blockquote>
The publication history of Plath's poetry has become notoriously complicated. Hughes' selection of poems from his first wife's work for various publications and collections sparked annoyance and argument. Wagner Martin, for example, irritated with him for what she felt were his limited annotations of <i>Collected Poems</i> and conceding that 'perhaps [he] considered it indelicate to reveal the identity of living persons', added 'but in that case why annotate the text at all?' It seems that Hughes maintained a fine balancing act between the selection of poems he elected to publish versus those he decided to withhold from public view and fifty years after Plath's death and fifteen after his, there are still plenty of people out there still quite prepared to vilify him (see for instance <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:KKNwPG3b8tUJ:www.iun.edu/~nwadmin/plath/vol3_Supp/Trinidad.pdf+%22plath%22%2B%22eavesdropper%22%2B%22ariel%22&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjEgsxRV54ns1zb6KKEONaNDYY0r20j4j8lxRmND0dP_SedgRraTE7TpAD9hjgjE4xfc4va4oTmHTgPpQDg-yiZbQHPIXtFXE49HtqAEHvEfXRE_Q3-QROJ6g3CQYGzij_iUNPK&sig=AHIEtbSkN9eZnmEmHPXH2XNV0rc0-1-HAw" target="_blank">Hidden in Plain Sight,</a> David Trinidad). 'Eavesdropper' was evidently one of the poems that gave Hughes a problem. I imagine that he soon came to know his new neighbours and out of respect for my aunt did not, at least initially, want to broadcast the unpleasant poem in this country. My understanding is that 'Eavesdropper' was first published in <i><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/183617" target="_blank">Poetry</a></i> in the US, in 1963, along with two other of Plath's late 1962 poems (the last clutch of the poet's poems placed in that magazine), some eight months after her death:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">'Plath appeared several times in <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/183617">Poetry</a>, the last time in August 1963 with "Fever 103°," "Purdah," and "<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/102/5#!/20589372" target="_blank">Eavesdropper</a>" The first of these, especially, shows her at the height of her powers, using a feverish delirium as a metaphor for love gone awry 'Darling, all night I have been flickering, off, on, off, on. The sheets grow heavy as a lecher's kiss.' Yet all three of these poems are fascinating—and often disturbing—in their rapidly-shifting depictions of a female speaker as, at turns, a "lantern," a "pure acetylene/ Virgin," a "mirror," a "peacock," a "lioness," and, in "Eavesdropper," a shockingly bitter housewife.The bio sheet she completed for these poems (included here) is dated January 29, 1963, less than two weeks before her death.' (<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/183617" target="_blank">Poetry Foundation Archive</a>)</span></blockquote>
In 1976, at the time of Bustscher's book, 'Eavesdropper', in company with two other late poems, 'Amnesiac' and 'The Detective', had not been published in the UK; again I assume that Hughes withheld it intentionally, considering the poem to be yet another of the 'more personally aggressive poems from 1962', (Hughes, Introduction to Plath's <i><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MhimQgAACAAJ&dq=plath+collected+poems+1981&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Qj8NUavNBOil0AXmtYBI&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAg" target="_blank">Collected Poems</a></i>), which he thought best to leave out of the first collections. So, other than in Poetry, 'Eavesdropper' to my knowledge remained excluded from any UK collection of Plath's work until 1981, when Hughes included it in <i><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MhimQgAACAAJ&dq=plath+collected+poems+1981&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Qj8NUavNBOil0AXmtYBI&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAg" target="_blank">Collected Poems</a></i> along with a number of other previously unpublished poems of 1962, and the as yet omitted twelve poems that she had left arranged in the <i>Ariel</i> sequence at her death. 'Eavesdropper' appears in the book as the last poem in the 1962 section.<br />
<br />
<div>
...Well, what can I say of 'Eavesdropper' and its portrayal of Rene as the text relates to real life that might feed constructively into the interpretative miasma concerning the last poems, the lost texts and the ongoing conversation about Plath/Hughes? Firstly, I must mention that I can only comment about the published version of the poem, as I have not had a chance to see the alterations and additions that Plath made to the poem, which were apparently quite extensive (See<b> </b>in Kendall, Sylvia Plath; <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Sylvia_Plath.html?id=X0F-QgAACAAJ" target="_blank">A Critical Study</a>). I might also add that the following remarks are set against awareness of a background critical context which construes intense focus on biographical references as reductive. I hope I can catch the appropriate balance between discussing material about the lives of poet and person, and valuing the poem as art.<br />
'Eavesdropper' may at first glance seem to be fairly insignificant in terms of the whole opus of the poet and also may initially appear to be about a rather common situation, whose subject's importance is solely that of being the 'nosy' busybody who has moved in next door. 'She' as far as the poem is concerned is one- dimensional in that the onlooking or 'eavesdropping' reader is not aware of <i>her</i> perspective on the situation as presented in the poem, and also because the poem inscribes her as a female subject entirely defined by a proclivity for interfering intrusiveness into others' business. I believe this to be very much only part of the story.<br />
From Rene's comments to me over the years when Sylvia's name has crept into conversations I have come to believe that my aunt acted as a kind of<b> </b>proxy therapist to her neighbour during the time of the poet's last weeks and months in North Tawton. I do not know if my aunt's name appears in the lost journals and if so, what kind of tone they might adopt. Neither do I know if Plath may have sent Rene any letters from London. It is possible, but if so Rene would not have kept them; she was a meticulous housewife and her small home was always spotless and welcoming; not the kind of place where clutter and ephemera would accumulate. Although the two women did not know each other for long in terms of clock-time, during the short period when they were neighbours I assume they developed quite a close and possibly intense 'sisterly' bond. Presumably their association was almost as long as that between Plath and Elizabeth Sigmund, Plath's 'earth mother' and 'confidante', who also first met Plath sometime in 1962. Given the difference of approximately twenty years in the ages of my aunt and her neighbour, they may even have begun to establish a pseudo mother/daughter bond. This would allow the possibility of projective transference, with all its attendant emotional repercussions. I suggest this because it seems to me relevant to a reading of 'Eavesdropper'. An initial reading of the poem attests that the 'nosy neighbour' is just that; someone who lives near or next door to the poet, but who is not in her confidence. On first reading the poem may not seem to share any information suggestive of any kind of familiarity between the two women; yet, at its mid-point and ending line it metaphorically hints at the reflection of the self via the other, a psychological mirroring: 'Mirror talk you love to catch me at' and 'Sister-bitch'. After several more readings the poem's spite can be somewhat put aside, the reader can get to its ending lines and note the sudden 'twist', 'Toadstone; Sister-bitch; Sweet neighbour', whose tone of bitter amusement and self-reflective irony seem to diffuse the dark mood of the foregoing lines at the moment the final line establishes a mutual gaze of recognition between poet and her subject. This mutuality and doubling occurs at various levels: the conscious realisation of <span style="text-align: center;">the writer's own propensity toward nosy and intense scrutiny of others, and the unconscious projection of self on to the other. </span><br />
'Eavesdropper' can be related to other late poems in which the poet's self analysis in terms of the double becomes central to the text's interpretation. For instance, 'The Other; 'The Applicant' and 'The Tour' all scrutinise intensely an 'Other' (self) and open with a dramatic remark (in the case of 'Eavesdropper', an 'incoherent outburst' - see Van Dyne,<a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=z_aFbYxYl3gC&oi=fnd&pg=PP12&dq=an+incoherent+outburst+van+dyne&ots=f47VaK8pT-&sig=A9zOvOqGimi4eera34OXPk5Vsgo#v=onepage&q=an%20incoherent%20outburst%20van%20dyne&f=false" target="_blank"> Revising Life; Sylvia Plath's Ariel Poem</a> - the 'Your brother' referred to was in real-life Rene's brother-in-law, who at the time held the farm where she was brought up, in nearby Exbourne) directed to an alter-ego, who is assumed to be an absent addressee.<br />
<b> </b> There are other echoes which connect 'Eavesdropper' with significant metaphorical figurative devices in other Plath texts; in particular, the 'yellow' self and the 'toadstone' - both of which are significant images in several poems and are also used by Hughes, in <i>Birthday Letters</i>, as linking symbols to his wife's poems. Stanza two, for example, which finishes with a cascade of what someone called 'erotic (phonemic) pulsation' (See Mitchell, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sylvia-Plath-negativity-Paul-Mitchell/dp/843708122X" target="_blank">Sylvia Plath; The Poetry of Negativity</a>) - (Your body one/Long nicotine finger/On which I/White cigarette/Burn for your inhalation ...) - is written in terms of the duality of the 'Godawful', 'yellow' bodily self of the subject versus the white-self of the speaker. There is a suggestion of alchemical transference, a transmutation between the two selves, which continues into the next stanza. Incidentally, my aunt's stay in Ghana probably left her with a fading tan, which would account for the poet's derogatory description of her appearance; whilst Rene loved the tropical heat she also had long-standing health problems to keep at bay.<br />
I do not wish to add to the already rich commentary about Plath's two selves, but I think it's useful to consider 'Eavesdropper' alongside poems such as 'In Plaster', where the poet describes her two selves:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now:<br />
This new absolutely white person and the old yellow one<br />
('<a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/sylvia-plath/in-plaster/" target="_blank">In Plaster</a>')</blockquote>
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or, to the split-self of Esther, the self-'heroine' in <i><a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TOCZ7VWtRdEC&dq=plath+the+bell+jar&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hUQNUfuiHsnH0QX1hoCoDw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA" target="_blank">The Bell-Jar</a></i>, the novel Plath completed during the final months of her life. As I read the text the subject of 'Eavesdropper' can be viewed as yet another of Plath's 'rejected doubles' (Jo Gill, <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nUv88oFidOoC&pg=PA81&dq=the+bell+jar+Plath's+mother&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LukLUc3DEe7s0gXZ4oDwCw&ved=0CDQQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=the%20bell%20jar%20Plath's%20mother&f=false" target="_blank">Cambridge Introduction to Sylvia Plath</a>).<br />
The toadstone is another repeated and I believe cryptic and important motif, which first appears in 'The Rival' and is picked up by Hughes in<i> <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xq20EYBVC30C&dq=birthday+letters+hughes&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZEUNUfm_AdKW0QXQ4IG4BA&sqi=2&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA" target="_blank">Birthday Letters</a>.</i> It appears in one of the early drafts of 'The Rival', 'Toadstone I see I must wear you in the centre of my forehead/And let the dead sleep as they deserve', in which context 'toadstone' seems to echo its symbolic use in <i>As You Like It</i>:<br />
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sweet are the uses of adversity<br />
which like the toad<br />
ugly and venomous<br />
wears yet a precious jewel in his head</blockquote>
In<a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xq20EYBVC30C&dq=hughes+birthday+letters&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xEkNUd_rF4jK0QWvzoHIDQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA" target="_blank"> B<i>irthday Letters</i> </a>Hughes seems to pick up on the dark aspect of the toadstone motif in the poem '18 Rugby Street', with the line 'toadstone in the head of your desolation'. Yet, later in the sequence, in the poem 'The Prism', he uses it to confirm the toadstone's mystical potency as an ambivalent symbol; here it is recognised as mythical stone, whose magical powers are valued as amulet of the self: It goes with me, your seer's vision-stone/Like a lucky stone, my unlucky stone ('The Prism').<br />
I find the toadstone a rather compelling motif and when I re-read 'Eavesdropper' like to imagine that as she worked through this poem the poet pushed through the defensive ambivalence she initially felt toward her new neighbour, and came upon a more supportive self-reflective realisation of that neighbour's own present mirroring life-experience to her own. Not artist, nor writer, nor mother; but Rene was a woman of her time; a woman with secrets; a woman living alone; perhaps, after all, a woman after the poet's own heart -<br />
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<i>'Toadstone! Sister Bitch! Sweet Neighbor!'</i></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large; text-align: center;">...</span></div>
I was thinking about the poem 'Eavesdropper', about the poet, Plath and the person, my late aunt and special god-mother, when I, with others of my family, said our farewells to her husband, my uncle Herbert - himself an amazing figure at 104 - almost two years ago in North Tawton church and cemetery. I recalled that some years ago, when I asked Rene if she might one day share what she knew of the Hughes couple she was adamant that she would not. She knew them both well. From many earlier conversations I knew she had confidences and secrets she could tell, yet out of consideration for Ted and his family was adamant she would never share them with the world at large. I respected her for her decision and did not try to press her. In retrospect I wonder if she might have changed her mind if she had been made aware of the poem. Given the merciless legacy of 'Eavesdropper' there seemed to me to be a bitter twist of irony in her decision; offered the opportunity to reveal all that she knew (of her 'eavesdropping sessions'), she chose to remain silent.<br />
As I get older, and as my memories of my aunt begin to recede into the distance and as each time I come across 'Eavesdropper' its vindictive recrimination hits me again, and whilst assuming the poet's absolute right of artistic licence to distort and misrepresent, I am pleased that I've tried to redress the skewed imbalance of the poem<b>.</b> There may be others around who have identified Rene. As I've suggested above I am convinced that Hughes himself recognised the portrait of his neighbour - for Hughes and Herbert and Rene had many neighbourly interactions - and so held back that poem as he did others, so as to protect her. In his <i>Memoirs</i> Herbert tells of how, after his retirement, Hughes let him cultivate and use the neglected Court Green kitchen-garden:<br />
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One day our neighbour Ted Hughes came in to see what changed to the cottage we were making. During his visit ... I broached the subject of what, in previous times, was the kitchen garden of Court Green ... it was completely overgrown with nettles and other weeds, masses of raspberry canes gone wild, saplings and even full-grown hawthorn trees ... Mr Hughes agreed a reasonable rent and got a solicitor to prepare a lease, and I set about the task of clearing the weeds and brushwood, burning the same and digging the ground ... I continued to use the plot until I was approaching 80.</blockquote>
Hughes indicated his affection for the couple through presenting them with a signed copy of each of his books as they were published. I guess he may have been a little more cautious to do so on publication of his first wife's <i>Collected Poems</i>, in 1981, when 'Eavesdropper' finally made an appearance in the UK. I'm not sure they had a copy, though they certainly had <i>Ariel</i> and <i>Winter Trees</i>. If they did I guess neither of them would have spotted the portrayal of Rene. Although they always admired their poet neighbours both Hughes' and Plath's poetry was obtuse and foreign to my uncle and aunt - who were more at ease with Betjeman, Yeats and Rupert Brooke - the latter of whose poetry I know Rene was especially fond. More recently, before his death, Hughes made a special exception for Rene when, during his last illness, during a period in which he was not signing texts, she asked if he would sign a copy of <i>Birthday Letters</i> for her niece (me) - who he did not know. I treasure this book.<br />
Having undergone angst about even attempting to write this particular blog piece - for reasons which by now must be obvious - I am now just a little more reluctant than usual to press the publish tab. How do you try to convey in just a few paragraphs a sense of what a special, loved person has meant to you over a lifetime? This piece is very much a first try to put what I want into words and is, I fear wanting; perhaps one day I might decide to expand my reading of 'Eavesdropper'.<br />
But now I seem to hear an inner voice and my late godmother Rene's gravelly laugh, her wicked sense of humour; she's cheering me on. I muse about how the two women's neighbourly acquaintance may have evolved if Plath had returned to Court Green as indeed it seems she planned: would they have ended up bosom pals, or bitter rivals?<br />
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‘… It’s my plan to return to Court Green in the Spring … Aprilish …please plan on coming back to Devon with me! It would be such fun to open the place up in the Spring there with you.’ (Letter from Plath to Ruth Fainlight, <a href="http://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/crossroads/tributes/jane_bowles_and_sylvia_plath_a_m/attachment.pdf" target="_blank">Jane and Sylvia - in Poetry Society</a>).</blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOCDnpWCL-Fah41sfIbeZ7WxS5PDdpKzmGQKTI4MTd1fZ8nsQboxBvIIXiCHMS8kZHks-bIuSeYTcu_5NfZQEYYZtf_aNOPB6aRrlnM4k94V3TcTD773cFTeowe0tw2Jjs2H3jw/s1600/Rene+close+up2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOCDnpWCL-Fah41sfIbeZ7WxS5PDdpKzmGQKTI4MTd1fZ8nsQboxBvIIXiCHMS8kZHks-bIuSeYTcu_5NfZQEYYZtf_aNOPB6aRrlnM4k94V3TcTD773cFTeowe0tw2Jjs2H3jw/s200/Rene+close+up2.jpeg" width="181" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rene as a young woman</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Copyright Julie Sampson 2013</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"> Thanks for Reading
© Julie Sampson 2010-2017 Some Rights Reserved.</div>Julie Sampsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16733322336151939085noreply@blogger.com6