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
[edit]Map of Kendal, 1814. Lickbarrow was a native of the town and published her first book there.
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]
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 Effusionsinelegiac 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]
Scout ScarorUnderbarrow Scar, near Kendal. Lickbarrow's 'On Underbarrow Scar' (composed about 1814) calls it a "lofty barrier of the waste".[17]
Knowles argues that "Lickbarrow's pre-Waterloo poetry voices a strong objection to Britain's role in the war in Europe", observing that this could be expected given her Quaker background.[18] Knowles also suggests that Lickbarrow's Lament upon the Death of Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte; and Alfred, a Vision (1818), about the death of Princess Charlotte of Wales in 1817, reflects unease about Britain's future — given that George IV, subject to widespread popular disdain, was about to succeed his father — and views Britain's ancient history, exemplified in the person of Alfred the Great, as a potential source of wisdom for the country in the early 19th century.[19] Knowles observes that Lickbarrow was "one of the only female poets to continue to write overtly political poetry in the post-Waterloo period".[20]
Poetical Effusions went out of print after its first publication, until 2004, when it was released in an edited collection by the Wordsworth Trust.[4] An anonymous contemporary reviewer of the Effusions wrote in the Monthly Review: "[t]he introduction to these verses is written with a simplicity and humility which are sufficient to mollify the severest critic; and the compositions, though not brilliant, display much chastened feeling, and a poetical perception of the beauties of nature."[22] Feldman observes that the work "contains unusual variety for a first book," noting that it features poems on a number of different subjects and in various styles.[23]
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]
^Newspaper poetry was common in the 18th and 19th centuries. On Romantic newspaper poetry, see Thomson, Heidi (2016). Coleridge and the Romantic Newspaper: The 'Morning Post' and the Road to 'Dejection'. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 33. ISBN9783319319780.