Anna Wickham

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Standard Name: Wickham, Anna
Birth Name: Edith Alice Mary Harper
Married Name: Edith Alice Mary Hepburn
Pseudonym: Anna Wickham
Pseudonym: John Oland
Anna Wickham was a prolific poet of the earlier twentieth century: in addition to several hundred published poems, more than a thousand remain unpublished.
Hepburn, James, Anna Wickham, and James Hepburn. “Editor’s Note and Acknowledgements”. The Writings of Anna Wickham, Free Woman and Poet, edited by Reginald Donald Smith, Virago Press, 1984, p. xxv - xxvi.
xxv
Her poems, with their unique blend of acerbity and lyricism, offer an explicitly female, often feminist, perspective on subjects ranging from marriage and motherhood to poetry itself. Louis Untermeyer has commented that [t]he very tone of her poetry reflects the disturbed music and the nervous protests of her age.
Untermeyer, Louis. “Anna Wickham”. Modern British Poetry, Mid-Century Edition, edited by Louis Untermeyer, Harcourt, Brace, 1950, pp. 276-7.
276
Despite his and others' efforts, her poetry has received scant critical attention over the years. In addition to poetry, AW wrote an unfinished autobiography and a handful of essays, some of which were published posthumously.
Black-and-white photo of Anna Wickham in her cluttered kitchen, originally published to accompany "Anna Wickham: A Poetess Landlady" in Picture Post, 1946. Looking off-camera, she is seated on a chair and smoking a cigarette.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships Olivia Manning
They met and married within a few weeks. Reggie Smith, who was home on leave from a job in Bucharest, was a socialist, a charmer, a philanderer, and a feminist (who was later to edit...
Friends, Associates Nina Hamnett
The following year NH met Anna Wickham , who took her in when she had flu, with a dangerously high temperature, and did not want to go back to her family. At that time NH
Friends, Associates D. H. Lawrence
Several women writers were numbered among DHL 's friends and acquaintances: Amy Lowell , Katherine Mansfield , Anna Wickham , Lady Cynthia Asquith , Carrington , Brett , Catherine Carswell , and Lady Ottoline Morrell
Friends, Associates Ethel Mannin
EM entertained frequently at Oak Cottage, the house she bought after separating from her first husband. Visitors included Paul Tanqueray , Louis Marlow , Ralph Straus , Norman Haire , Fenner Brockway , and...
Friends, Associates Gladys Henrietta Schütze
On her first attendance at PEN , taken there by an American friend, Sarah MacConnell , she met Catharine Amy Dawson Scott (whom she took to at once), Galsworthy (whose work she much admired), Roma Wilson
Textual Features Germaine Greer
Women are a minority here, but well represented: Fleur Adcock , Anna Letitia Barbauld , Amy Clampitt , Olive Custance (Lady Alfred Douglas) , Emily Dickinson , Freda Downie , U. A. Fanthorpe , Vicki Feaver
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Natalie Clifford Barney
The first half, devoted to men, describes NCB 's encounters with Oscar Wilde , Anatole France , Remy de Gourmont , Marcel Proust , Gabriele D'Annunzio , Max Jacob , and others. The second part...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Nina Hamnett
This book opens in 1926, with the author considerably bewildered by [her] somewhat disordered life since [her] return to England,
Hamnett, Nina. Is She a Lady? A Problem in Autobiography. Allan Wingate, 1955.
38
and the later course of the book remains disordered, offering the same flow of...

Timeline

1 January 1913
Harold Monro opened the Poetry Bookshop at 35 Devonshire Street (now Boswell Street) in Bloomsbury.
2 July 1914
The first issue of the magazine Blast, edited by Wyndham Lewis , formally announced the arrival of Vorticism, an avant-garde movement in art.

Texts

Hepburn, James, Anna Wickham, and James Hepburn. “Anna Wickham: A Memoir”. The Writings of Anna Wickham, Free Woman and Poet, edited by Reginald Donald Smith, Virago Press, 1984, pp. 1-48.
Hepburn, James, Anna Wickham, and James Hepburn. “Editor’s Note and Acknowledgements”. The Writings of Anna Wickham, Free Woman and Poet, edited by Reginald Donald Smith, Virago Press, 1984, p. xxv - xxvi.
Wickham, Anna, James Hepburn, and James Hepburn. “Fragment of an Autobiography: Prelude to a Spring Clean”. The Writings of Anna Wickham Free Woman and Poet, edited by Reginald Donald Smith, Virago Press, 1984, pp. 51-157.
Untermeyer, Louis, and Anna Wickham. “Introduction”. The Contemplative Quarry; and, The Man with a Hammer, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921, p. vii - xv.
Wickham, Anna. “Introduction”. Selected Poems, edited by David Garnett, Chatto and Windus, 1971, pp. 7-11.
Hepburn, James, and Anna Wickham. “Preface”. The Writings of Anna Wickham, Free Woman and Poet, edited by Reginald Donald Smith and Reginald Donald Smith, Virago Press, 1984, p. xix - xxiii.
Wickham, Anna. Selected Poems. Editor Garnett, David, Chatto and Windus, 1971.
Wickham, Anna. Songs. Women’s Printing Society, 1911.
Wickham, Anna. The Contemplative Quarry. Poetry Bookshop, 1915.
Wickham, Anna, and Louis Untermeyer. The Contemplative Quarry; and, The Man with a Hammer. Harcourt, Brace, 1921.
Wickham, Anna. The Little Old House. Poetry Bookshop, 1921.
Wickham, Anna. The Man with a Hammer. Grant Richards, 1916.
Wickham, Anna, and James Hepburn. The Writings of Anna Wickham, Free Woman and Poet. Editor Smith, Reginald Donald, Virago Press, 1984.