Augusta Webster
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Augusta Webster | |
|---|---|
 Etching of Webster based on photograph from Rome | |
| Born | Julia Augusta Davies 30 January 1837 |
| Died | 5 September 1894 (aged 57) |
| Resting place | Highgate Cemetery |
| Nationality | British |
| Other names | Cecil Homes |
| Alma mater | Cambridge School of Art |
Augusta Webster (30 January 1837 – 5 September 1894) born in Poole, Dorset as Julia Augusta Davies, was an English poet, dramatist, essayist, and translator. She is known for her translations of the works of Aeschylus and Euripides.[1]
Biography
[edit]Augusta was the daughter of Vice-admiral George Davies (1800-1876) and Julia Hume (1803-1897), the fourth daughter of Joseph Hume of Somerset House. She spent her younger years on board the ship, the Griper, her father, as lieutenant of the coast guard, held command.[2]
She self-studied Greek, Italian and Spanish at home, taking a particular interest in Greek drama, and went on to study at the Cambridge School of Art. She published her first volume of poetry in 1860 under the pen name Cecil Homes.[citation needed] In 1863, she married Thomas Webster, a fellow and lecturer in Law at Trinity College, Cambridge. They had a daughter, Augusta Georgiana, who married Reverend George Theobald Bourke, a younger son of the Joseph Bourke, 3rd Earl of Mayo.[citation needed]
Much of Webster's writing explored the condition of women, and she was a strong advocate of women's right to vote, working for the London branch of the National Committee for Women's Suffrage.[citation needed] She was the first female writer to hold elective office, having been elected to the London School Board in 1879 and 1885.[3][4] In 1885 she travelled to Italy in an attempt to improve her failing health. She died on 5 September 1894, aged 57.[citation needed]
During her lifetime her writing was acclaimed and she was considered by some the successor to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. After her death, however, her reputation quickly declined. Since the mid-1990s she has gained increasing critical attention from scholars such as Isobel Armstrong, Angela Leighton, and Christine Sutphin. Her best-known poems include three long dramatic monologues spoken by women: A Castaway, Circe, and The Happiest Girl In The World, as well as a posthumously-published Sonnet Sequence, Mother and Daughter, of which her only child, Augusta, is its subject.[citation needed]
She died on 5 September 1894 and was buried on the western side of Highgate Cemetery. Her grave (plot no.8187), which is situated above the cuttings catacombs, has suffered badly from tree roots.
Literary works
[edit]Poetry
- Blanche Lisle: And Other Poems. 1860
- Lilian Gray. 1864
- Dramatic Studies. 1866
- A Woman Sold and Other Poems. 1867
- Portraits 1870
- A Book of Rhyme 1881
- Mother and Daughter 1895[5]
Translations into verse
- Prometheus Bound 1866
- Medea 1868
- Yu-Pe-Ya's Lute. A Chinese Tale in English Verse. 1874
Plays
- The Auspicious Day 1874
- Disguises 1879
- In a Day 1882
- The Sentence 1887
Novels
- Lesley's Guardians 1864
- Daffodil and the Croaxaxicans: A Romance of History 1884[6]
Essays
- A Housewife's Opinions 1878[7]
Further reading
[edit]- Patricia Diane Rigg, Julia Augusta Webster: Victorian Aestheticism and the Woman Writer, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (2009)
- T. D. Olverson, Women Writers and the Dark Side of Late-Victorian Hellenism, London: Palgrave Macmillan (2010)
- Isobel Hurst, Victorian Women Writers and the Classics: The Feminine of Homer, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2008)
References
[edit]- ^ "Carcanet Press - Augusta Webster (1837 - 1894)". www.carcanet.co.uk. Retrieved 1 February 2025.
- ^ "Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Webster, Augusta - Wikisource, the free online library". en.wikisource.org. Retrieved 1 February 2025.
- ^ "Women in the Literary Marketplace". rmc.library.cornell.edu.
- ^ Papaioannou, Nicole. "'But They Would Not Teach Her to Play': Child Heroines, Fantasy, and the Victorian Debate on Female Education" (Master's thesis). Montclair State University: Montclair, NJ
- ^ Published after her death by William Michael Rossetti as Mother & Daughter. An uncompleted sonnet-sequence .. With an introductory note by W.M. Rossetti. To which are added Seven, her only other, Sonnets. London, Macmillan & Co.
- ^ "Daffodil and the Croäxaxicans: a Romance of History ". webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
- ^ Webster advocated woman's suffrage and offered her thoughts on topics relevant to married women in this collection of essays. Crawford, p.703
Sources
[edit]- Crawford, Elizabeth. The Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey. Women's and gender history. London: Routledge, 2006. googlebooks Accessed 27 September 2008
- . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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 – via Wikisource.
External links
[edit]- Works by or about Augusta Webster at Wikisource
- Works by Augusta Webster at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
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