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Eliza Cook by William Etty

Eliza Cook (1818-1889), by William Etty (1787-1849), 1845. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Eliza Cook
Born December 24, 1818(1818-Template:MONTHNUMBER-24)
London Road, Southwark, England
Died September23, 1889(1889-Template:MONTHNUMBER-23) (aged 54)
Wimbledon, London, England
Nationality United Kingdom English
Period 1830s-1880s

Eliza Cook (24 December 1818 - 23 September 1889) was an English poet.[1]

Life[]

Youth and education[]

Cook was the youngest of 11 children of a brasier living in London Road, Southwark.[1]

When she was about 9 years old her father retired from business, and the family went to live at a small farm in St. Leonard's Forest, near Horsham.[1]

Her mother encouraged Eliza's fondness for imaginative literature, but the child was almost entirely self-educated. She began to write verses before she was 15; indeed, some of her most popular poems, such as "I'm afloat" and the "Star of Glengarry," were composed in her girlhood.[1]

Career[]

Eliza Cook 05 1860s

Eliza Cook in the 1860s. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Her debut collection, Lays of a Wild Harp, appeared as early as 1835, when she was but 17. Encouraged by its reception, she began to send verses without revealing her name to the Weekly Dispatch, Metropolitan Magazine,' and New Monthly Magazine; and William Jerdan sang her praises in the Literary Gazette.[1]

After a time she confined herself to the Weekly Dispatch, where her earliest contribution had appeared under the signature 'C.' on 27 Nov. 1836. In May of the following year that paper printed the "Old Arm Chair" with her initials. [1]

Its success and that of other verses from the same pen induced the owner of the Dispatch (Alderman Harmer of Ingress Abbey in Kent) to have a notice inserted in his paper requesting that the writer would reveal her name. Cook, who was now living in the neighborhood of St. George's Road, Waiworth, complied with the request. The result was a handsome pecuniary acknowledgment, and a regular engagement to contribute to the paper.[1]

Her 2nd volume, entitled Melaia, and other poems, was published in London in 1838 (reissued in 1840 and 1845), and met with great success both in England and America, where an edition was issued at New York in 1844.[1]

Cook was a proponent of political and sexual freedom for women, and believed in the ideology of self-improvement through education, something she called "levelling up." This made her a great favourite with the working-class public.[2]

In May 1849 Cook brought out a publication upon somewhat similar lines to Chambers's Journal,' which she called Eliza Cook's Journal. It had great popularity among the same class of readers to which her poetry appealed, and was for a time highly successful. But she had no great journalistic ability, and, her health breaking down, the publication was discontinued after November 1854.[1]

Bad health compelled her to take a long rest, and it was not until 1864 that she produced fresh verse in the volume called New Echoes, and other poems. It showed failing power, and was not as successful as her previous efforts.[1]

Afterward she published nothing but a few poems in the Weekly Dispatch, and she soon became something like a confirmed invalid. Her popularity waned, though she was in receipt of royalties from her publishers almost to the close of her life.[1]

She died on 23 September 1889 at Thornton Hill, Wimbledon, in her 71st year.[1]

Writing[]

Poems00cook 0006

From Poems, 1861. Courtesy Internet Archive.

Poetry[]

Cook's poetry appealed very strongly to the middle classes. Its strength lay in the sincerity of its domestic sentiment, which is absolutely devoid of affectation, and, on the other hand, never degenerates into the mawkish.[3]

"The Old Arm Chair," by far the most popular of Eliza Cook's poems, was inspired by affection for her dead mother.[1]

Her poem "Melaia" is an eastern tale, the theme being the attachment of a dog to his master.[1]

Her sympathetic lines, "Poor Hood," led to the erection of a monument in Kensal Green cemetery to that somewhat neglected man of genius.[3]

Collective editions (exclusive of New Echoes) appeared in 1851-18543, 4 vols.; and om 1860, 1 vol. 4to, with illustrations by Dalziel Brothers after J. Gilbert, J. Wolf, and others. Complete inclusive editions followed in 1870 (Chandos Classics) and 1882 (New York).[3]

Prose[]

A great part of her journal's contents reappeared in Jottings from my Journal, 1860.[1] They consisted of essays and sketches written in a simple, clear, and unpretentious style, and generally conveyed some moral lesson. Some of them are mild satires on the social failings of her contemporaries, and exhibit good sense and some humor.[1]

With the exception of this volume, and a collection of aphorisms entitled Diamond Dust, published in 1865, she never essayed prose.[1]

Critical introduction[]

by John H. Ingram

An almost contemptuous indifference has succeeded to the extensive popularity once enjoyed by Eliza Cook. The reaction, although not inexplicable, is to some extent undeserved. During the latter portion of her life her reputation was unduly depressed, owing to her lengthy withdrawal from the world through ill-health; but some of her lyrics are still familiar, and many of them are worthy of preservation.

It has been the fashion to weigh the merits of Eliza Cook by an unjust standard. She did not attempt to please poets or philosophers — her audience was the people. Her muse, though homely in attire, could touch the hearts of those to whom the philosophy of Shelley, or the psychology of Browning, was incomprehensible. She had her mission, and fulfilled it honestly. She carried pathos and true sentiment into hearts and homes, where little but vulgarity and commonplaceness dwelt.

Modern England is singularly deficient in poets who can touch the nation’s heart. She has poets, true and great, but they are only for the educated classes; the masses have but few minstrels now-a-days, whose lays are fit for their firesides. The songs of Béranger, Petöfi, Burns, can still excite the emotions of the labouring folks more than they can the high-strung feelings of the educated of their nationalities; but the English possess no such influential bards.

Eliza Cook sang for the people, and was comprehended of the people and her influence was ever for their good. She inculcated independence, integrity, a love of home, and a sturdy patriotism; and although beauty rather than morality may be the truest theme for poetry, the class of readers Eliza Cook appealed to were better able to understand and profit by moral themes, especially when they were presented to them in a self-respective instead of in the usual mawworm manner. Eliza Cook’s themes may be trivial, but they touch home, and have often caused the eyes to dim with tears—the lips to quiver with emotion—of those whose hearts have long been closed to any softening influence.

Adverse criticism notwithstanding, it may be confidently claimed for Eliza Cook that she was and is a poet of the people: a poet whose works are filled with sympathy for the downtrodden and helpless, the earth-weary and oppressed. Her works are characterised by purity of tone, clearness of expression, and an entire absence of straining for effect. In her verse, sound ever echoes sense, and rhyme is always accompanied by reason.

No writer has been more national, without being narrow-minded, than Eliza Cook; and whilst in sympathy with the suffering of all humanity, she took pre-eminently to heart the precept, “Poet, of thine own country sing.” Naturally, several of her lyrics were only of transient interest, referring as they did to such contemporary events as the Lancashire Cotton Famine, the Shakespeare Tercentenary, Garibaldi’s Visit to England, and the like; but many of them strike those chords of the human heart, which are of ever-enduring vitality, and deal with thoughts and themes that age cannot stale, nor repetition dull.[4]

Recognition[]

On 18 June 1863 Cook was awarded a Civil List pension of £100 a year.[1]

Selected poems, including the "Old Arm Chair," the "Englishman," "God speed the Plough," and the "Raising of the Maypole," with a preface by John H. Ingram, are in A.H. Miles's Poets of the Century.[3]

In 1864 H. Simon edited a quarto volume of her pieces translated into German.[3]

Publications[]

Poetry[]

  • Melaia, and other poems. London: Charles Tilt, 1840; New York: J. & H.G. Langley, 1844.
  • Poems: Second series. London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1845.
  • The Poetical Works of Mary Howitt, Eliza Cook, and L.E.L. (with Mary Howitt and Letitia Elizabeth Landon). Boston: Phillips & Sampson, 1849.
  • The Glass of Gin. New York: Brognard, 1851.
  • Poems in 3 [4] Volumes. London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1851-1853.
  • The Poems of Eliza Cook: Comprising Melaia, together with her miscellaneous pieces. Philadelphia: U. Hunt, 1845; London: Leavitt & Allen, 1853.
  • Poems. London & New York: Routledge, Warne, & Boutledge, 1861.
  • New Echoes, and other poems. London: Routledge, Warne, & Boutledge, 1864.
  • Poetical Works: A complete edition. London: F. Warne / New York: Scribner, Welford, 1870.
  • The Old Farm Gate. London & New York: Raphael Tuck, 1888.
  • The Sea Child (edited by Andrea Taylor). Mission, BC: Cotton Socks Press, 2000.

Non-fiction[]

  • "People Who Do Not Like Poetry" (May 1849), in A Serious Occupation: Literary criticism by Victorian women writers. ISBN 1-55111-350-3.
  • Jottings from My Journal. London & New York: Routledge, Warne, & Boutledge, 1860.

Letters and journals[]

The_Old_Arm-Chair,_a_poem_by_Eliza_Cook

The Old Arm-Chair, a poem by Eliza Cook


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[5]

See also[]

BE_KIND_WHEN_YOU_CAN,_Eliza_Cook

BE KIND WHEN YOU CAN, Eliza Cook

References[]

Fonds[]

Notes[]

  1. 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 Norgate, 53.
  2. Eliza Cook, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons. Web, Mar. 18, 2020.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Norgate, 254.
  4. John H. Ingram, "Critical and Biographical Essay: Eliza Cook (1818–1889)", Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century (edited by Alfred H. Miles). London: Routledge / New York: E.P. Dutton, 1907. Bartleby.com, Web, May 24, 2014.
  5. Search results = au:Eliza Cook, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, July 25, 2013.

External links[]

Poems
Audio / video
Books
About

PD-icon This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement (edited by Sidney Lee)​. London: Smith, Elder, 1901. Original article is at: Cook, Eliza

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