Catherine Maria Fanshawe

Catherine Maria Fanshawe
Born 6 July 1765 Edit this on Wikidata
Died 17 April 1834 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 68)
Occupation Poet edit this on wikidata

Catherine Maria Fanshawe (1765–1834) was an English poet, the daughter of John Fanshawe (1738–1816), a Surrey squire, and his wife Penelope (née Dredge).[1] She was born at Shabden in Chipstead, Surrey. Her poetry was praised by Walter Scott. She and her sisters were also artists.[2]

Family life

Fanshawe's father held a post in the household of King George III. She and her two sisters were his co-heirs. They lived at 15 Berkeley Square, London, and at Midhurst House, Richmond, Surrey, but also visited Italy due to poor health. She died after a long illness at Putney Heath, then in Surrey, on 17 April 1834.[1][2]

Poetry

Fanshawe wrote clever occasional verse after the Romantic school. Some of her poems were printed in publications by Joanna Baillie and Mary Russell Mitford in 1823 and 1859, then together in 1865 and 1876. Mitford described her as "admirable as a letter-writer, as a reader of Shakespeare, and as a designer in almost every style."[2] Her poems "sparkle with irony. She mimics political voices she disagrees with." The diary she kept has not been found.[1]

Fanshawe's best-known production is the famous "Riddle on the Letter H", beginning "'Twas whispered in heaven and 'twas muttered in hell", which has often been attributed to Byron.[3] Her "Fragment in Imitation of Wordsworth" appears in the Oxford Book of Parodies (edited by John Gross).

Walter Scott admired her poetry as "quite beautiful".[2] He also related that Catherine and her sisters were the first publishers of the Memoirs of Ann, Lady Fanshawe (1625–1680), which cover her life up to 1672 and were completed in 1676. These appeared in 1829.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy: The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 356.
  2. 1 2 3 4 W. P. Courtney, revised by Rebecca Mills: "Fanshawe, Catherine Maria". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004) Retrieved 4 September 2018.
  3. ↑ Jarndyce Booksellers' catalogue Women Writers 1795–1927 Part I: A–F (London, Summer 2017).

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource 

  •  "Fanshawe, Catherine Maria". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.


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