Julia Augusta Webster

This book treats the literary work of Julia Augusta Webster within the context of Websters participation in nineteenth century British aestheticism. Websters personal life, her experience as a member of the Suffrage Society and her tenure on the London School Board, as well as her position as poetry reviewer for the Athenaeum and participation in the salon society of the 1880s, inform her later work, but her earliest poetry and fiction also reflect the beginnings of the aestheticist perspective on the transience and impermanence of life. This book makes use of extensive archival materials to provide context for a study of Websters literary work, beginning with her first volume of poetry Blanche Lisle and concluding with her posthumously published Mother and Daughter sonnets. In tracing the trajectory of Websters development as an aestheticist poet, Patricia Rigg extends Webster scholarship into areas of the writers work not previously explored.

Augusta Webster (as she was known) published one novel, many reviews and several books of poetry, including verse plays, in the last four decades of the 19th century. An activist in social causes, she fought for women's suffrage in England; as a member of the London school Board, she championed the cause of the poor who could not pay for their children's education. Though appreciated by writers and reviewers of her day, Webster's work did not sell well and went out of print soon after her death. Because today her ironic aesthetic philosophical stance, focusing on the pain and brevity of life and avoiding moral judgment, seems current, literary critics have begun to explore her work. This biographical critical study reveals plentiful research in primary documents, letters, school board minutes, newspapers, and periodicals provides a good introduction to Webster and her work. Rigg (Acadia Univ.) writes well, and she shows considerable critical acumen with appropriate reference to the limited literature on Webster. Rigg makes some surprising gaffes, such as failure to recognize the Spenserian stanza. But the real difficulty this study faces is Webster's obscurity, which means the audience for this book will be limited.

(Julia) Augusta Webster, ne Davies (1837- 1894) was an English poet and translator. She was born in Poole, Dorset. She married Thomas Webster who was a solicitor. She wrote some of her books under the pen name Cecil Home, among which are: Blanche Lisle and Other Poems (1860) and Lilian Gray (1864). She authored several books of poetry, including: Dramatic Studies (1866), Portraits (1870) and A Book of Rhyme (1881); and some dramas, including: The Auspicious Day (1874), Disguises (1879) and The Sentence (1887). She also made translations of Prometheus Bound and Medea.