Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Adelaide Procter
-
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.
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...
Friends, Associates
Emily Faithfull
As a member of the Langham Place GroupEF
counted most of the women activists of the day among her friends. Her far-flung circle of associates included Adelaide Procter
and Frances Power Cobbe
.
Stone, James S. Emily Faithfull: Victorian Champion of Women’s Rights. P. D. Meany.
183, 16
Friends, Associates
Emily Faithfull
EF
suffered in various ways as a result of the trial. The sense that she had prevaricated, at the very least, alienated many of her associates on The English Woman's Journal, including Emily Davies
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...
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...
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...
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...
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
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...