Robert Southey

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Standard Name: Southey, Robert
Robert Southey was a Romantic poet, one of the Lake Poets with Wordsworth and Coleridge . In addition to epics, ballads, and other verse, he penned several plays and contributed regularly to the ToryQuarterly Review. His prose works, for which he was celebrated during his lifetime, were primarily historical, ecclesiastical,and biographical, in addition to travel writing. He also produced translations (from French and Spanish), editions, and anthologies. He enjoyed an excellent reputation in his day, and for his last thirty years of life served as Poet Laureate.
Oil painting of Robert Southey from the waist up. He is wearing a black jacket and a white shirt underneath, and he is looking slightly toward the left.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Amelia Opie
Four poems by AO were included in the first number of the reformist Annual Anthology, edited by Robert Southey It was here that she first published under her married name.
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Opie, Amelia. “Introduction”. Adeline Mowbray, edited by Shelley King and John B. Pierce, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. i - xxix.
xxxvii
Opie, Amelia. “Introduction”. The Collected Poems of Amelia Alderson Opie, edited by Shelley King and John B. Pierce, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. xxxvii - lxx.
xliv
Birth Mary Maria Colling
MMC , poet, was born at Tavistock in Devon, one of a large lower-class family.
Anna Eliza Bray told Robert Southey that MMC was born on this day in 1805; but the church record...
Dedications Anna Eliza Bray
AEB published her sixth novel, Warleigh; or, The Fatal Oak, A Legend of Devon, a historical romance in three volumes with a dedication to Robert Southey .
Kirk, John Foster, and S. Austin Allibone, editors. A Supplement to Allibone’s Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors. J. B. Lippincott, 1891, 2 vols.
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge, 1989.
Bray, Anna Eliza. Autobiography of Anna Eliza Bray. Editor Kempe, John A., Chapman and Hall, 1884.
289
Bray, Anna Eliza. The Novels and Romances of Anna Eliza Bray. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1845–1846, 10 vols.
6: prelims
Dedications Margaret Holford
The original is by Dom Manuel José Quintana . Holford's dedication to Robert Southey (dated from Sharow Lodge in Ripon on 12 May)
Baillie, Joanna. The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie. Editor Slagle, Judith Bailey, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999, 2 vols.
2: 537
praises him for championing the faith of his forefathers and...
Dedications Anna Eliza Bray
In a letter dated February 1831, Southey suggested that she should create a good specimen of local history.
qtd. in
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 116. Gale Research, 1992.
116: 52
The resulting ninety-four letters, dedicated and addressed to Southey , were written between February 1832...
Dedications Catherine Sinclair
CS published, this time in Edinburgh through William Whyte and Company , a book of much the same genre as her travel writings, Scotch Courtiers and the Court: dedicated to the poet laureate.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
786 (19 November 1842): 984-5
Education Mary Matilda Betham
More important than his teaching were her own efforts in a congenial atmosphere. The family would read aloud from poems and plays, providing their own appreciation and criticism. In her diary she wrote: In our...
Education Jean Ingelow
In later years she expanded her reading to include Shakespeare , Southey , Scott , Wordsworth , and Tennyson . She also read Henry Drummond 's Natural Law in the Spiritual World and hisTropical Africa and Charles Lamb 's Letters.
Some Recollections of Jean Ingelow and Her Early Friends. Kennikat Press, 1972.
150-1
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Peters, Maureen. Jean Ingelow: Victorian Poetess. Boydell, 1972.
23
Education George Eliot
Her devotion to John Bunyan 's Pilgrim's Progress remained unchanged during this period. She also read heavyweight works of theology, Hannah More 's letters, and a life of William Wilberforce . By late 1838, however...
Education Mary Sewell
At the age of fifteen she ceased regular study, and began reading on her own. She spent much of the time at Friends ' meetings going over passages from Byron , Southey , Moore ...
Family and Intimate relationships Sara Coleridge
SC 's mother, born Sarah Fricker , had several sisters, two of whom also married prominent poets. One married Robert Lovell , and another, Edith Fricker , married Robert Southey , who became a major...
Family and Intimate relationships Sara Coleridge
Robert Southey , SC 's uncle by marriage, contributed significantly to her upbringing and education.
Commire, Anne, and Deborah Klezmer, editors. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Yorkin Publications, 1999–2002, 17 vols.
Family and Intimate relationships Caroline Bowles
After the death of his first wife, Edith Fricker , in 1838, Robert Southey proposed to CB . The original Dictionary of National Biography called her acceptance of his offer the most momentous step of her life.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Family and Intimate relationships Sara Coleridge
SC 's father-in-law initially objected to the match, primarily for economic reasons.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes, and Sara Coleridge. Sara Coleridge, a Victorian Daughter: Her Life and Essays. Yale University Press, 1989.
35, 47
When he did come to terms with the union, the couple then had to wait until Henry completed his studies in...
Family and Intimate relationships Caroline Bowles
CB was too old to have children with Robert Southey , and the children of his first marriage were not disposed to welcome her warmly. Virginia Blain speculates that their marriage was not consummated. Southey's...

Timeline

: One of the best-known poems of John Skelton,...

Writing climate item

Autumn 1498

One of the best-known poems of John Skelton , The Bowge of Courte, probably dates from this season. It was printed by Wynkyn de Worde the following year.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Cooper, Helen. “Skeltonics”. London Review of Books, 14 Dec. 2006, pp. 32-4.
32, 33

By 18 September 1794: By this date Coleridge claimed to have written...

Writing climate item

By 18 September 1794

By this date Coleridge claimed to have written one of the two sonnets attributed to him this year about the scheme for establishing Pantisocracy (a utopian community) in America.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Poetical Works [of] Coleridge, including poems and versions of poems herein published for the first time. Editor Coleridge, Ernest Hartley, Oxford University Press, 1969.
68-9

By June 1796: Samuel Taylor Coleridge compiled a booklet...

Writing climate item

By June 1796

Samuel Taylor Coleridge compiled a booklet titled Sonnets from Various Authors: four each by himself, Southey , Charles Lamb , and Charles Lloyd , two by Charlotte Smith , and one each by seven...

1798: Thomas Robert Malthus anonymously published...

Building item

1798

Thomas Robert Malthus anonymously published in LondonAn Essay on the Principle of Population, which later attached his name to the birth control movement.
Tannahill, Reay. Sex in History. Stein and Day, 1980.
406
Fryer, Peter. The Birth Controllers. Secker and Warburg, 1965.
70
Graham, Kenneth W. “Beckford, Godwin, Austen, and the Divisive 1790s”. Persuasions, Vol.
24
, 2002, pp. 33-46.
37
O’Brien, Karen. Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
228-9
Shapin, Steven. “Libel on the Human Race”. London Review of Books, Vol.
36
, No. 11, 5 June 2015, pp. 26-9.

June 1816: Lady Isabella King opened at Bailbrook House...

Building item

June 1816

Lady Isabella King opened at Bailbrook House near Bath a communal home for single gentlewomen (or Protestant nunnery): a project going back to Mary Astell , which King picked up from Sarah Scott 's Millenium Hall.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

May 1819, May 1820: These months were scheduled for the removal...

National or international item

May 1819, May 1820

These months were scheduled for the removal of thousands of subsistence farmers and their families from the Highland estates of Lord and Lady Stafford (later the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland ) in the Sutherland...

October 1822: Byron published The Vision of Judgment (written...

Writing climate item

October 1822

Byron published The Vision of Judgment (written around the previous summer) in The Liberal, a journal which he and Leigh Hunt briefly published at Pisa.
Byron, George Gordon, sixth Baron. “Introduction”. Byron’s Poems, edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto, J. M. Dent, 1963–1968, p. 1: v - xx.
1: xvii
Pinto gives the date as October...

January 1823: Charles Lamb published the first volume of...

Writing climate item

January 1823

Charles Lamb published the first volume of his Essays of Elia, which had been appearing regularly since August 1820 in the London Magazine.
Lamb, Charles, 1775 - 1834, and Mary, 1764 - 1847 Lamb. The Letters of Charles Lamb. Editor Lucas, Edward Verrall, J. M. Dent, 1935, 3 vols.
2: 560
Burton, Sarah. A Double Life: A Biography of Charles and Mary Lamb. Viking, 2003.
317, 330-1

May 1837: Thomas Noon Talfourd, MP for Reading, author,...

Writing climate item

May 1837

Thomas Noon Talfourd , MP for Reading, author, and friend of the literati, began his campaign to extend the length of copyright.
Feather, John. Publishing, Piracy and Politics: An Historical Study of Copyright in Britain. Mansell, 1994.
129

Texts

Southey, Robert. A Vision of Judgement. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821.
Southey, Robert. History of Brazil. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1819, 3 vols.
Southey, Robert, and Caroline Bowles. “Introduction”. The Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles, edited by Edward Dowden, Hodges, Figgis, 1881, p. vi - xxxii.
Southey, Robert, and John, servant Jones. “Introduction, with Observations on Uneducated Poets”. Attempts in Verse, by John Jones, an Old Servant, John Murray, 1831.
Southey, Robert. Joan of Arc. Printed by Bulgin and Rosser, for Joseph Cottle, 1796.
Southey, Robert. Madoc. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1805.
Southey, Robert, and Caroline Bowles. Robin Hood, A Fragment. W. Blackwood and Sons, 1847.
Southey, Robert. Roderick, the Last of the Goths. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1814.
Southey, Robert, editor. Specimens of the Later English Poets. Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1807, 3 vols.
Southey, Robert. Thalaba the Destroyer. T. N. Longman and O. Rees, 1801, 2 vols.
Southey, Robert, and Caroline Bowles. The Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles. Editor Dowden, Edward, Hodges, Figgis, 1881.
Southey, Robert. The Curse of Kehama. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1810.
Southey, Robert. The Life of Nelson. John Murray, 1813, 2 vols.
Southey, Robert, and Charles Cuthbert Southey. The Life of the Rev. Andrew Bell. Editor Bowles, Caroline, J. Murray, 1844, 3 vols.
Southey, Robert. Wat Tyler. Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1817.