dumbfoundry

Isabella Lickbarrow: the name sounds made up and slightly comic, like a character in a sitcom. Or so I thought, when I first came across her poetry just over a decade ago. At that time, the best of her books, Poetical Effusions, had been out of print since its first appearance in 1814, available only to those with a reader's ticket to a copyright library: 180 years of total neglect had done to her what they would to any writer, irrespective of the quality of their work.

Last month, the enterprising Wordsworth Trust published the first collected edition of Lickbarrow's poems, compiled and introduced by Constance Parrish. It enables us to read her, for the first time since 1814, on her own terms, revealing that, even if she does not loom over the Romantic period like her near-contemporary and near-neighbour, the gizzard of Grasmere, her voice is every bit as passionate and original as his. [...]

This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy on Monday, August 09, 2004 at 9:52 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.