Isabella Lickbarrow
Isabella Lickbarrow (5 November 1784 – 10 February 1847) was an English poet from Kendal who is sometimes associated with the Lake Poets.[1] She published two collections: Poetical Effusions (1814) and A Lament upon the Death of Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte; and Alfred, a Vision (1818).[2] Her work covers a wide variety of subjects, but scholars have noted in particular her topographical poetry and political poetry about the Napoleonic Wars.
Life
Lickbarrow lived in Kendal for most, if not all of her life.[2][3] Her mother died when she was five years old and her father when she was 20, after which she turned to publishing poetry as a way to earn a living for herself and two sisters.[4] This is apparent from the preface to Poetical Effusions (1814), which describes the work as a way to "assist the humble labours of herself and her orphan sisters".[5]
Lickbarrow came from a Nonconformist family. Her father, originally a Quaker, became a Unitarian.[6][3] She was a relative of John Dalton, who subscribed to Poetical Effusions, her first collection.[7][8]
A near-contemporary article in Notes and Queries claims Lickbarrow was "more than once an inmate of the Asylum for Lunatics, at Lancaster",[9] but present-day scholars have not verified this claim.[3]
Isabella Lickbarrow died of tuberculosis in Kendal, in 1847.[10]
Poetry
Lickbarrow began publishing in the Westmorland Advertiser, a local newspaper, in November 1811 and quickly gained a following, which led to the release of Poetical Effusions by the newspaper's publisher in 1814.[4]
Effusions was funded by subscription, as were many literary works at the time. Her subscribers included Sara Hutchinson, who was William Wordsworth's sister-in-law and a friend and muse of Coleridge,[11][12] Wordsworth himself, Thomas De Quincey, and Robert Southey.[13][a] William Axon, writing in Notes and Queries in 1908, recalled Effusions in elegiac tones: "[L]et us hope that the result of the publication was to make life easier for Isabella Lickbarrow, although it has not secured her the immortality of Sappho."[7]
Lickbarrow's poetry was versatile and evinced an interest in matters both at home and abroad. Jonathan Wordsworth, describing Lickbarrow as a "poet of genuine individuality", notes that her poems show a preoccupation with the Napoleonic Wars, among other subjects.[14] Behrendt observes that her poems on war attend to the troubles that soldiers, often poor and ill-served by the government, faced when returning home from the campaign.[15][b]
Lickbarrow "bid the nation rejoice" upon Napoleon's abdication.[16]
Knowles argues that "Lickbarrow's pre-
Although her subjects included politics and foreign affairs, Lickbarrow also wrote frequent topographical poetry about locations in the Lake District and elsewhere, including Underbarrow Scar, Esthwaite Water, and South Stack Lighthouse (in Wales).[21]
Poetical Effusions went out of print after its first publication, until 2004, when it was released in an edited collection by the
Works
Lickbarrow published two collections and numerous poems in local newspapers.
- Lickbarrow, Isabella (1814). Poetical Effusions. Kendal/London: M. Branthwaite & Co./J. Richardson. Printed twice in 1814, once locally in Kendal and once in London.[24]
- Lickbarrow, Isabella (1818). A Lament upon the Death of Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte; and Alfred, a Vision. Liverpool: G. F. Harris & Bros.
- Lickbarrow, Isabella (7 August 2004) [1814]. "On the Fate of Newspapers". The Guardian. A much-noted composition on the publication of poems in newspapers that concerns neither war or topography.[7][c]
Notes
- ISBN 978-0-521-56085-6., whereby a large number of patrons may, for a relatively small outlay, find their names listed among the subscribers.
Subscription has rightly been described as a kind of democratized patronage
- ISBN 978-0-674-08249-6.wars, so a recruit might enter the army in debt and not receive any pay for six months or more after enlistment.
The enlistment bounty never covered the cost of clothing and necessaries, except during the French and Crimean
- ISBN 9783319319780.
- OCLC 42856154.
- ^ a b Curran 1996, p. 113.
- ^ .
- ^ a b c Wu, Duncan (7 August 2004). "Out of poverty, riches". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
- ^ Wordsworth 1997, pp. 11, 190.
- ^ Parrish 2008, pp. 43–44.
- ^ .
- ^ Parrish 2008, p. 44.
- ^ Burton, John (17 February 1866). "Samuel Salkeld". Notes and Queries. 3rd series. 9: 145.
- ^ Brown, Susan; Clements, Patricia; Grundy, Isobel, eds. (2006). "Isabella Lickbarrow". Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Online.
- ^ Roberts, Adam (1 November 2017). "Sara Hutchinson, Coleridge's 'Asra'". Wordsworth Trust.
- ^ Parrish 2008, p. 43.
- ^ Wordsworth 1997, p. 190.
- ^ Wordsworth 1997, pp. 192, 193.
- ^ Behrendt 2000, p. 22–23.
- Gale IG3222927920.
- ^ Lickbarrow 1814, p. 95.
- ^ Knowles 2020, p. 10.
- ^ Knowles 2020, pp. 10–11.
- ^ Knowles 2020, p. 12.
- ^ Aubin, Robert Arnold (1966). Topographical Poetry in 18th-Century England. New York: Modern Language Association. pp. 310, 360, 383.
- Monthly Review. 76 (1): 211. February 1815.
- ISBN 978-0-8018-6640-1.
- OCLC 1151155133.
Sources
- Behrendt, Stephen C. (2000). "'A Few Harmless Numbers': British Women Poets and the Climate of War, 1793–1815". In Shaw, Philip (ed.). Romantic Wars: Studies in Culture and Conflict, 1793–1822. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-24390-0.
- Curran, Stuart (March 1996). "Isabella Lickbarrow and Mary Bryan: Wordsworthian Poets". The Wordsworth Circle. 27 (2): 113–118. S2CID 165291195.
- Knowles, Claire (24 March 2020). "Female Romantic Poetry, 1798–1819: The Climate of Fear and the Loss of a Radical Generation". Women's Writing. 28 (3): 305–319. S2CID 216352534.
- Parrish, Constance (1 March 2008). "Isabella Lickbarrow and Thomas Rodick". ISSN 0029-3970.
- OCLC 35292994.
Further reading
- Lickbarrow, Isabella (2004) [1814; 1818]. Parrish, Constance (ed.). Collected Poems. Grasmere, Cumbria: OCLC 57412108. A present-day edited collection of all Lickbarrow's works.