#Alice Meynell

[uwmspeccoll]

It’s Fine Press Friday! 

Today we’re leaning into the drama with a 1910 edition of Poems from notorious bohemian and (unofficial) Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) member Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). This vellum covered, gilt stamped, 369-page tome was printed on Unbleached Arnold paper by the Villafield Press in Glasgow and published in limited run of 350 copies in London by Blackie & Son under the art direction of Talwin Morris. It features a praiseful yet cutting introduction from fellow poet, critic, and suffragist Alice Meynell (1847-1922) along with a wealth of illustrations (70 plates) by Florence Harrison (1877–1955) , an Australian illustrator of poetry and children’s books who worked extensively with Blackie & Son. Harrison’s style was inspired by the Romantic Era and the nature-worshipping, hedonistic values of the Art Nouveau and Pre-Raphaelite movements of the time. Fittingly, she also illustrated the works of fellow PRB poets William Morris (1834-1896) and Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892).   

While many of the poems included are overtly devotional and express themes of purity, motifs of romantic love, limerence, melancholy, and death permeate the mood of the text as a whole. The Rossetti family, particularly Christina’s brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) (poet, illustrator, painter, translator, and co-founder of the PRB) and Elizabeth Siddal (1829-1862) (artist, iconic art model, poet, and Dante’s longtime partner, muse, and eventual wife), are known for their exploits, excesses, creative legacy and influence on the culture of the era. Christina published her first poem at only 16, and Siddal posed for Millais's Ophelia at 19. The radical, passionate nature of the philosophies and lifestyle they embodied was as much a product of the intensity and privilege of their youth as of the Renaissance ideals and Victorian mores they rebelled against.   

For a deeper dive on the Rossettis and their generation, check out this recent exhibition at the Tate Modern.  

View another Christina Rossetti post

View another Dante Gabriel Rossetti post

View another Pre-Raphaelite post

View more Art Nouveau posts

--Ana, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[eminent-victoriana]

Victorian Women who would've obsessed girlbloggers

[violettesiren]

O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise In the young children's eyes. But I have learnt the years, and know the yet Leaf-folded violet. Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell The cuckoo's fitful bell. I wander in a grey time that encloses June and the wild hedge-roses. A year's procession of the flowers doth pass My feet, along the grass. And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know The notes that stir you so, Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear Beginnings of the year. In these young days you meditate your part; I have it all by heart.

I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers Hidden and warm with showers, And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall Alter his interval. But not a flower or song I ponder is My own, but memory's. I shall be silent in those days desired Before a world inspired. O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases Earth, thy familiar daisies.

The poet mused upon the dusky height, Between two stars towards night, His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space, The meaning of his face: There was the secret, fled from earth and skies, Hid in his grey young eyes. My heart and all the Summer wait his choice, And wonder for his voice. Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire But to divine his lyre? Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries, But he is lord of his.

In Early Spring by Alice Meynell

[eleftheria-moon]

Snippet from ‘On Keats’ Grave’ by Alice Meynell (1847-1922)

Edition: Poems of Rome, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets

[poemoftheday]

Poem of the Day 9 September 2022

Renouncement BY ALICE MEYNELL I MUST not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, I shun the love that lurks in all delight— The love of thee—and in the blue heaven's height, And in the dearest passage of a song. Oh, just beyond the sweetest thoughts that throng This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden yet bright; But it must never, never come in sight; I must stop short of thee the whole day long. But when sleep comes to close each difficult day, When night gives pause to the long watch I keep, And all my bonds I needs must loose apart, Must doff my will as raiment laid away,— With the first dream that comes with the first sleep I run, I run, I am gather'd to thy heart.

[peaceofheartt]

Renouncement, Alice Meynell

[laddersofsweetmisery]

My former English professor is retiring and gave away a bunch of the books in her office. She's a gem. I giddily returned to campus just to sort through her collection. Super excited about the ones I brought home with me. I thought someone else might appreciate some of the books I found.

I've already began poring over the poetry collections, but what should I read first? Are there any that you guys have read that you highly recommend?

Books included in Photo 1:

● Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (Alta Edition includin Persuasion)

● Robert Burns by David Daiches

● Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

● Leigh Hunt's What is Poetry? by Albert S. Cook

● Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister by Aphra Behn

● Virginia Woolf: A Biography by Quentin Bell

● Holy Madness: Romantics, Patriots, and Revolutionaries 1776-1871 by Adam Zamoyski

● Earnest Victorians by Robert A. Rosenbaum

● Lord Byron: Selected Letters and Journals by Lord Byron, Leslie A. Marchand (Editor)

Books Included in Photo 2:

● Orlando by Virginia Woolf

● Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

● The Portable Irish Reader, (The Viking portable library) by Diarmuid Russell

● The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

● Becoming a Heroine by Rachel M. Brownstein

● To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf

● East Lynne by Ellen Wood, writing as Mrs Henry Wood

● Poetry and Prose of Alexander Pope edited by Aubrey Williams

● In Memoriam; An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism (Norton Critical Editions) by Alfred Tennyson

● Daughters and Fathers by Lynda E. Boose, Betty S. Flowers

Books Included in Photo 3:

● Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

● A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne

● Goblin Market and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti (Dover Thrift Editions)

● Sound the Deep Waters: Women's Romantic Poetry in the Victorian Age includes works by Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, Alice Meynell, and Edith Nesbit

● The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

● The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein by Thomas Hoobler and Dorothy Hoobler

● Wordsworth and the Poetry of Human Suffering by James H. Averill

● Victorian Ghost Stories: By Eminent Women Writers (Part of the The Virago Book Series) edited by Richard Dalby

● The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

● Victorian Poetry and Poetics by Walter E. Houghton G. Robert

[cleverwordsandotherstuffilike]

"Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind." ~ Alice Meynell

[shcherbatskya]

on love and death and life in the month of february

the diaries of franz kafka, 1914 // february, Margaret Atwood // end of winter, Louise Glück // in february, John Addington Symonds // in february, Alice Meynell // odes, Fernando Pessoa // double doors, Richard Jones

[theeminentlyimpractical]

I vow thee this Unique rejection of a kiss

So I guess I’m just getting attacked when I open random books of poetry from 1913 now. (Alice Meynell)

[feytouched]

hello!! that poem you just posted was breathtaking!! i see that it is called "the rainy summer" by alice meynell. could i trouble you for the name of the book?

the book i found it in is called the four seasons and it's an anthology edited by j d mcclatchy as part of the everyman's library pocket poets series! i heartily recommend it

[thebeautifulbook]

THE CHILDREN by Alice Meynell (London/New York: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1897). Cover design by Charles Robinson.

source

[violettesiren]

Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn, Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers, And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers; A poet’s face asleep in this grey morn. Now in the midst of the old world forlorn A mystic child is set in these still hours. I keep this time, even before the flowers, Sacred to all the young and the unborn.

To all the miles and miles of unsprung wheat, And to the Spring waiting beyond the portal, And to the future of my own young art, And, among all these things, to you, my sweet, My friend, to your calm face and the immortal Child tarrying all your life-time in your heart.

In February by Alice Meynell

[astrid-grim-art]

The leaves are under my feet

And drift one way

Their scent of death is weary and sweet

A flight of them is in the grey

Where the sky and forest meet

Poem by Alice Meynell

Stockholm and Prague 2022

[poemoftheday]

Poem of the Day 9 January 2023

The Lady of the Lambs by Alice Meynell SHE walks—the lady of my delight— A shepherdess of sheep. Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white; She guards them from the steep. She feeds them on the fragrant height, 5 And folds them in for sleep. She roams maternal hills and bright, Dark valleys safe and deep. Her dreams are innocent at night; The chastest stars may peep. 10 She walks—the lady of my delight— A shepherdess of sheep. She holds her little thoughts in sight, Though gay they run and leap. She is so circumspect and right; 15 She has her soul to keep. She walks—the lady of my delight— A shepherdess of sheep.

[bones-ivy-breath]

Interior of Complete Poetical Works of Francis Thompson, Boni and Liveright, Inc. publishers.

Text ID:

First image: Mercywood Sanitarium Ann Arbor, Mich.

Second image: Mercywood Sanitarium Sister's Library / Complete Poetical Works of Francis Thompson / Boni and Liveright, Inc. / Publishers New York

Third image: Dedication of Poems (1893) / To Wilfred and Alice Meynell

If the rose in meek duty May dedicate humbly To her grower the beauty Wherewith she is comely; If the mine to the miner The jewels that pined in it, Earth to diviner The springs he divined in it; To the grapes the wine-pitcher Their juice that was crushed in it, Viol to its witcher The music lay hushed in it; If the lips may pay Gladness In laughter she wakened, And the heart to its sadness Weeping unslakened, If the hid and sealed coffer, Whose having not his is, To the losers may proffer Their finding—here this is; Their lived if all livers To the Life of all living,— To you, O dear givers! I give your own giving!

Handwriting: LC 7/15/54 $3.00 176