Adelaide Procter

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Standard Name: Procter, Adelaide
Birth Name: Adelaide Anne Procter
Indexed Name: Adelaide Procter
Pseudonym: Mary Berwick
AP 's poetry, which appeared almost exclusively in Household Words and All the Year Round, was among the most popular of the Victorian era. An active mid-Victorian feminist, she was a member of the Langham Place Circle and supporter of the Victoria Press , for which she edited the showcase annual The Victoria Regia as well as contributing journalism and poetry to the English Woman's Journal. A convert to Catholicism, much of whose oeuvre is religious poetry (at times put to the service of social protest), she was allegedly the favourite writer of the Queen and certainly one of the best-selling poets of her day. She died young, leaving only three short collections of her poetry.
Black and white photograph of a painting of Adelaide Procter by Emma Gaggiotti Richards. She is wearing a simple dark dress with long, wide sleeves, and decorative red tassels hanging down the front and back, which are connected by a rope that sits around her shoulders. Her smooth dark hair is pulled back into a simple bun. The painting has a simple dark background, which blends out to reveal unpainted board at the edges. National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Hélène Barcynska
At six years old, Marguerite Jervis was sent to a small private school at Herne Bay in Kent. She was the youngest girl there, and so naughty that the headmistress suggested a boarding school...
Friends, Associates Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
BLSB 's other prominent women friends included Adelaide Procter , Anna Mary Howitt (Mary 's daughter), and Anna Brownell Jameson .
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press.
58, 71
Occupation Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Jessie Boucherett and Adelaide Procter served as the honorary secretaries, Sarah Lewin and Emily Crow acted as executive secretaries, and BLSB , Bessie Rayner Parkes, and Emily Faithfull served on the advisory committee.
Friends, Associates Jessie Boucherett
Helen Blackburn recounts that JB met Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and Adelaide Procter after casually picking up a copy of the English Woman's Journal at a railway station. She was so impressed with the contents...
politics Jessie Boucherett
In 1859, along with Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and Adelaide Procter , JB launched the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women (SPEW). They held their first meeting on 19 June 1859.
Stone, James S. Emily Faithfull: Victorian Champion of Women’s Rights. P. D. Meany.
232n1
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.
“Obituary: Miss Emilia Jessie Boucherett”. Times, p. 8.
Though all...
Travel Charlotte Brontë
CB again visited the Smith s in London, where she met a number of young female writers, among others Anne Thackeray and Adelaide Procter .
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
639-43
Textual Features Elizabeth Barrett Browning
It contained the contents of the previous volumes, a new translation of Æschylus 's Prometheus Bound, The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point, and further sonnets. These including sonnets on her sisters, her dog...
Literary responses Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Aurora Leigh was, according to Barry Cornwall (father of Adelaide Procter ), the book of the season.
Procter, Bryan Waller. An Autobiographical Fragment and Biographical Notes, with Personal Sketches of Contemporaries, Unpublished Lyrics, and Letters of Literary Friends. Editor Patmore, Coventry, Roberts Brothers.
113
John Ruskin wrote shortly after its appearance, I think Aurora Leigh the greatest poem in the English...
Intertextuality and Influence Rosa Nouchette Carey
Each chapter is given a title and an epigraph, among which lines from women writers (Jean Ingelow , Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Adelaide Anne Procter , Anne Brontë , Helen Marion Burnside ) are...
Friends, Associates Emily Davies
When, late in life, she forbade the writing of an intimate biography but expressed her willingness that a sketch should be written, she thought such a sketch might advantageously cover both herself and Madame Bodichon...
Textual Production Charles Dickens
Other contributions were appeared from Mrs Alexander , Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Edward Bulwer-Lytton , Caroline Chisholm (later parodied by CD ), Wilkie Collins , Dinah Mulock and Georgiana Craik , Amelia B. Edwards ,...
Material Conditions of Writing Mary Angela Dickens
The journal All the Year Round, founded by MAD 's grandfather and then edited by her father, was one of the first and most significant platforms for her short stories and serialized novels. Other...
Dedications Emily Faithfull
The most important publication of the Victoria Press to the history of women's printing and publishing is undoubtedly The Victoria Regia (1861). This literary gift book, edited by Adelaide Procter and dedicated by permission to...
politics Emily Faithfull
By 1859 The English Woman's Journal was felt to be no longer adequate on its own for promoting women's work, and Jessie Boucherett suggested the creation of a society which would deal specifically with this...
Occupation Emily Faithfull
This was an important year for the Victoria Press, and consequently for EF . In addition to printing The English Woman's Journal, the Transactions of the Social Science Association, and a number of...

Timeline

March 1858: The English Woman's Journal, a monthly magazine...

Women writers item

March 1858

The English Woman's Journal, a monthly magazine on the theory and practice of organised feminism, began publication in London, with financial support from Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and others, under the editorship of...

7 July 1859: The first meeting of the Society for Promoting...

Building item

7 July 1859

The first meeting of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women was held in London; founding members included Anna Jameson , Emily Faithfull , Jessie Boucherett , Adelaide Procter , Bessie Rayner Parkes , Isa Craig , and Sarah Lewin .

Late 1859: The offices of The English Woman's Journal...

Women writers item

Late 1859

The offices of The English Woman's Journal moved from Cavendish Square to 19 Langham Place, where a ladies' club was also planned.

1861: A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued...

Writing climate item

1861

A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued what seems to be the earliest version of a game called Authors, whose object was to collect sets of cards bearing the names of writers and the...

August 1864: The English Woman's Journal, a practical...

Building item

August 1864

The English Woman's Journal, a practical and theoretical source of organized feminism from London, merged into The Alexandra Magazine and English Woman's Journal.

Texts

Procter, Adelaide, and Richard Doyle. A Chaplet of Verses. Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1862.
Procter, Adelaide. “A Woman’s Question”. Household Words, Vol.
17
, No. 411, p. 179.
Dickens, Charles et al. “An Introduction”. Legends and Lyrics, Fifteenth, George Bell and Sons, 1874, p. xi - xxxi.
Ogle, Anne. “An Old Woman’s Story”. The Victoria Regia, edited by Adelaide Procter, Emily Faithfull, 1861, pp. 326-32.
Procter, Adelaide. Legends and Lyrics. Bell and Daldy, 1858.
Procter, Adelaide. Legends and Lyrics. Bell and Daldy, 1861.
Procter, Adelaide et al. Legends and Lyrics. Bell and Daldy, 1866.
Procter, Adelaide, and Charles Dickens. Legends and Lyrics. George Bell and Sons, 1874.
Faithfull, Emily. “Preface”. The Victoria Regia, edited by Adelaide Procter, Emily Faithfull, 1861, p. v - viii.
Procter, Adelaide, and Charles Dickens. The Poems of Adelaide A. Procter. James R. Osgood, 1873.
Faithfull, Emily. The Victoria Regia. Editor Procter, Adelaide, Emily Faithfull, 1861.