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NORTON: THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF CAROLINE NORTON (1808-1877)
Detailed List
REEL ONE
Aunt Carry’s Ballads for Children:
Adventures of a Wood Sprite, together with The story of Blanche and Brutikin.
With illustrations by John Absolon.
54pp + 8 illustrations. Joseph Cundall, London, 1847.
Written for Edith and Brinsley Sheridan (her niece and nephew.)
The Child of the Islands, a poem.
xvi +238pp. Chapman & Hall, London, 1845.
Dedicated to her brother, Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
A poem on class and the condition of the English people.
The Coquette, and other Tales and Sketches in prose and verse.
Reprinted from the Court Magazine.
2 vols, 247pp and 264pp. Edward Churton, London, 1835.
Contents of Vol. I: (Page)
The Coquette (1)
The Traitor (45)
Lament of the Poet Savage (57)
Summer’s Gone (69)
The Spirit of the Hurricane (78)
The Farewell (115)
Night (121)
The Broken Vow (127)
The Two Harps (153)
Lines (161)
The Two Pictures (165)
Song of the Irish Peasant Wife (175)
Curious Customs in the County of Middlesex (181)
The Haunted Wood of Amesoy (227)
Contents of Vol. II: (Page)
To Lady Graham (1)
The Forsaken Child (7)
On Reading an Old Letter (85)
The Friend of Our Early Days (95)
The Forsaken (99)
The Lost Election (105)
Mona Water (145)
Lines on the Death of the Stag (153)
The Forsaken (163)
The Young Heir’s Death-Bed (179)
Lines (195)
I Do Not Ask Thy Love from Fate (199)
Kate Bouverie (205)
Christmas (247)
On the Death of Sir Walter Scott (261)
REEL TWO
The Dream, and other poems.
x + 301pp. Henry Colburn, London, 1840.
Dedicated to her grace the Duchess of Sutherland, this work was widely praised - earning the title of “the Byron of poetesses” from Henry Nelson Coleridge in the Quarterly magazine.
Contents: (Page)
Dedication (v)
The Dream (1)
Notes (73)
The Creole Girl: or, The Physician’s Story (77)
Twilight (97)
A Destiny (109)
Miscellaneous Pieces:
The Chapel Royal St. James’s, on the 10th February, 1840 (125)
Notes (131)
On seeing Anthony, the eldest child of Lord and Lady Ashley (133)
The Dying Hour (137)
I Cannot Love Thee! (143)
The Poet’s Choice (153)
The German Student’s Love-Song (157)
The Hunting-Horn of Charlemagne (162)
The Faithful Friend (167)
To Ferdinand Seymour (175)
The Winter’s Walk – (Written after walking with Mr. Rodgers) (178)
The Reprieve (184)
The Faithful Guardian (189)
The Forsaken (193)
The Visionary Portrait (198)
The Picture of Sappho (202) [this poem is reproduced on page 35 of this guide]
The Sense of Beauty (206)
The Mother’s Heart (212)
May-Day, 1837 (216)
The Fever-Dream (219)
To The Lady H.O. (223)
The Fallen Leaves (227)
The Autumn Wind (230)
The Blind Man’s Bride (233)
The Widow to her Son’s Betrothed (237)
The Tryst (241)
The Banner of the Covenanters (243)
The Rock of the Betrayed (249)
The Lament for Shuil Donald’s Daughter (261)
Weep not for Him that Dieth! (264)
The Child of Earth* (266) (*This, and several of the preceding pieces, have appeared in print, in the Annuals, &c.) [contemporary note]
The Christening of my Brother’s Infant Son (269)
The Mother’s Last Watch (275)
Sonnets (279)
I. On seeing the bust of the young Princess de Montfort (283)
II. and III. Raphael and the Fornarina (284)
IV. V. VI. VII. Love Sonnets (286)
VIII. To my Books (290)
IX. To the Countess Helene Zavadowsky (291)
X. To Taglioni (292)
XI. The Moss-Walk at Markly, Sussex (293)
XII. The Disdained Lover (294)
XIII. The Weaver (295)
XIV. From the Spanish (296)
XV. To Miss Augusta Cowell (297)
XVI. XVII. Princess Marie of Wirtemburg (298)
XVIII. XIX. On hearing of the death of the Countess of Burlington (300)
The Lady of La Garaye (a True Story.)
2nd ed, 128 + (16)pp. Macmillan & Co, Cambridge, 1862.
Based on a true story, this tells the story of a French noblewomen, the Countess of La Garaye, who is injured during a hunting accident, but instead of succumbing to self-pity, helps to establish a hospital for the poor.
The English Annual for 1836.
(vi) + 376pp. Edward Churton, London, 1836.
Caroline Norton was the editor of this Journal from 1834 to 1838.
Table of Contents: (Page)
A few words on Court Fools (1)
The Musical Drama – Meyerbeer and Robert le Diable By G. H. Caunter (14)
Sonnet (26)
Memoir of the Hon. Mrs. Ashley Cooper (27)
The Pole. By The Author of “Frankenstein” (Mary Shelley) (32)
In a Gale off Malta. By Dr. Madden (74)
Song (75)
Memoir of the Hon. Mrs.Pelham (76)
O ye Hours. By Mrs. Hemans (81)
The Silver Arrow – a Tale of the Archery Ground. By Miss Mitford (82)
Memoir of her Grace the Duchess of Sutherland (104)
The Modern Narcissus (106)
The Incantation (107)
The Press Gang (108)
Verses to her Royal Highness the Duchess of York. By M.G. Lewis (130)
Penshurst Place (131)
Sonnet form Petrarch (139)
The Statue. By The Rev. Hobart Caunter B.D. (140)
Memoir of Lady Erskine (152)
The Rivals. By Charles Whitehead Esq. (156)
The Fairies’ Recall. By Mrs. Hemans (172)
The Garland of Musicians – No. I Handel. By H. F. Chorley (173)
Eastnor Castle (175)
Loves of the Lords and Ladies – No. I Lord John and Miss Fuggleston. By T. Haynes Bayly, Esq. (183)
The Settlers of Van Dieman’s Land. By The Author of “Woman’s Love” (184)
To Laura (197)
Loves of the Lords and Ladies – No. II Lady Elizabeth Burd. By T. Haynes Bayly, Esq. (198)
Memoir of the Right Hon. Lady Charlotte Bury (200)
Love and Diplomacy (203)
Althorp (215)
Loves of the Lords and Ladies – No. III The Lord and the Jewess. By T. Haynes Bayly, Esq.(225)
The Defunct. By The Same (227)
Memoir of the Right Hon. Dowager Countess of Errol (237)
The Garland of Musicians – No. II Joseph Hayden. By H. F. Chorley (239)
Turkish notions of Civilisation. By J. A. St. John (241)
The Sisters. By The Author of “The Island Bride” (253)
Lowther Castle (254)
Lines addressed to a Lady By The Author of the “Heliotrope” (264)
The Garland of Musicians – No. III Mozart. By H. F. Chorley (265)
The Betrothed; or the last of the Antonij. By Dr. William Beattie (267)
The Mourner (290)
The Longships Light House (292)
Writing in Albums (295)
Niagara, and so on. By N. P. Willis (298)
Loves of the Lords and Ladies – No. IV Romantic Love. By T. Haynes Bayly, Esq. (324)
Memoir of the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland (326)
The Betrayed. By Mrs. Leman Grimstone (329)
Loves of the Lords and Ladies – No. V An Opera Dancer. By T. Haynes Bayly, Esq (331)
Goodwood (332)
The Garland of Musicians – No. VI Rossini. By H. F. Chorley (343)
Memoir of the Hon. Mrs. Shaw (345)
I love not the Morning’s Light (349)
The Pilgrim. By Miss Jane Anne Porter (351)
Night-blowing Flowers. By Mrs. Hemans (360)
Belvoir Castle (361)
The False One (370)
Memoir of the Right Hon.Lady Newark (372)
REEL THREE
The Sorrows of Rosalie or, Love’s Sacrifice, a Tale, with other poems.
xiv + 134pp. John Ebers & Co, London, 1829.
Dedicated to Lord Holland, this was Caroline Norton’s first serious publication (she had co-authored The Dandies Rout with her sister when she was thirteen). It was written in the early years of her unhappy marriage.
Contents: (Page)
The Sorrows of Rosalie (1)
Elvira, a Fragment (76)
The young Crusader (81)
Linda Alhaya (83)
Le Ranz des Vaches, with Translation (86)
Que de vos e de me diran? (88)
Verdad ! Verdad ! from the Spanish (90)
The One you loved the best (92)
To - (94)
While I think of you, Love (95)
I would the World were mine (97)
To a Blind Child (99)
Farewell (102)
Stanzas (103)
To the Nursery (104)
On T. B. S. (106)
The Heart’s Wreck (109)
The Birth Day (111)
The Darkness of the Grave (112)
Marriage and Love (114)
Farewell (121)
Thy will be done (123)
To a Child (125)
Say not ‘tis dark (129)
Music’s power (130)
But thou (132)
I do not love thee (133)
The Undying One, and other poems.
2nd ed, viii +272pp. Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, London, 1830.
A version of the legend of the Wandering Jew.
Contents: Page
The Undying One - Canto I. (1)
Canto II. (33)
Canto III. (67)
Canto IV. (131)
Notes (161)
Miscellaneous Poems –
On the Purple and White Carnation – A Fable (169)
The Careless World (173)
They Loved one another (176)
My Heart is like a wither’d Nut (178)
My Childhood’s Home (180)
Escape from the Snares of Love (182)
Ifs (184)
As when from Dreams awaking (186)
Old Friends (189)
The Bride (191)
The Pilgrim of Life (195)
The Captive Pirate (197)
The Future (201)
I was not false to thee (208)
The Greek Girl’s Lament for her Lover (209)
Oh! Life is like the Summer Rill (211)
When poor in all but Hope and Love (213)
We have been Friends together (215)
The Boatswain’s Song (217)
Recollections (220)
Description of a Lost Friend: from the Morning Post (223)
Recollections of a faded Beauty (228)
Babel (237)
The Mourners (240)
The Crooked Sixpence (242)
The Wanderer looking into other Homes (244)
Mary (247)
The Ringlet (249)
The Rebel (252)
The Lost One (254)
My Native Land, from the German of Körner (256)
Dreams (258)
Would I were with thee! (259)
The Name (261)
The Faithless Knight (263)
First Love (265)
Edward (267)
The Arab’s Farewell to his Horse (269)
A Voice from the Factories, in serious verse.
40pp. John Murray, London, 1836.
Published anonymously, this was an appeal on behalf of factory children.
From the Dedication to the Right Honourable Lord Ashley.
“…. as the noble-hearted and compassionate Howard became immortally connected with the removal of the abuses which for centuries disgraced our prison discipline; as the perseverance of Wilberforce created the dawn of the long-delayed emancipation of the negroes; - so, my Lord, I trust to see your name enrolled with the names of these great and good men, as the Liberator and Defender of those helpless beings, on whom are inflicted many of the evils both of slavery and imprisonment, without the odium of either.”
London, October, 1836
“Ever a toiling child doth make us sad:
‘Tis an unnatural and mournful sight,
Because we feel their smiles should be so glad,
Because we know their eyes should be so bright.
What is it, then, when, tasked beyond their might,
They labour all day long for others’ gain, -
Nay, trespass on the still and pleasant night,
While uncompleted hours of toil remain?
Poor little FACTORY SLAVES - for you these lines complain!”
A Plain Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the Infant Custody Bill,
by Pearce Stevenson, Esq (pseudonym.)
124pp, James Ridgway, London, 1839.
This polemical pamphlet was part of the debate concerning Thomas Talfourd’s Infant Custody Bill, which was enacted in 1839.
Letters to the Mob,
by Libertas (pseudonym.)
Three Anti-Chartist letters reprinted from the Morning Chronicle, 1848.
21pp. Thomas Bosworth, London, 1848.
1848 was a year of revolutions in Europe. As these extracts show, Norton was no sympathiser:
“I thought to head this, ‘A letter to the People,’ but you are not the people. You usurp their name; you represent yourselves as acting on their behalf; but they disown and fear you. They look with alarm on your tumultuous gatherings. They stand on the defensive against your attacks. They distrust you. They know you to be sections, more or less dangerous, of disturbers of the public peace.”
“The Chartist dream of equality is the most cruel of all the temptations with which mob-traps are baited; for it is at once the most specious and the most false. There can be no equality, any more than there can be a sea without a shore! Superiority is not a thing of man’s devising, but of God’s appointing. Gradation is His law.”
A Letter to the Queen
on Lord Chancellor Cranworth’s Marriage and Divorce Bill.
155pp. Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, London, 1855.
This is widely acknowledged to be one of Norton’s most important publications. Whilst the Queen did not reply (nor was she expected to) this crystallised Norton’s views on the unfairness of the English legal system to women and, together with the writings of Barbara Leigh Smith (Bodichon), helped to change the climate of opinion. The style of the piece, interweaving closely reasoned arguments with strongly worded polemic, can be seen from its opening address.
“Madam,
On Tuesday, June 13th, of last session, Lord Chancellor Cranworth brought forward a measure for the reform of the Marriage laws of England; which measure was afterwards withdrawn. In March, 1855, in this present session, the Solicitor General stated, that a bill on the same subject was “nearly prepared,” and would be brought forward “immediately after the Easter recess.” On May 10th, being pressed to name a time, he stated that it would be proposed “as soon as the House had expressed an opinion on the Testamentary Jurisdiction Bill.” That time has not arrived: and meanwhile, - as one who has grievously suffered, and is still suffering, under the present imperfect state of the law, - I address your majesty on the subject.
I do not do so in the way of appeal. The vague romance of “carrying my wrongs to the foot of the throne,” forms no part of my intention: for I knew the throne is powerless to redress them. I know those pleasant tales of an earlier and simpler time, when oppressed subjects travelled to the presence of some glorious prince or princess, who instantly set their affairs to rights without reference to law, are quaint old histories, or fairy fables, fit only for the amusement of children.
I connect your Majesty’s name with these pages from a different motive; for two reasons: of which one, indeed, is a sequence to the other. First, because I desire to point out the grotesque anomaly which ordains that married women shall be “non-existent” in a country governed by a female sovereign; and secondly, because, whatever measure for the reform of these statutes may be proposed, it cannot become “the law of the land” without your Majesty’s assent and sign manual. In England there is no Salique law. If there were, - if the principles which guide all legislation for the inferior sex in this country, were carried out in their integrity as far as the throne, - your Majesty would be by birth a subject, and Hanover and England would be still under one King.
A married woman in England has no legal existence: her being is absorbed in that of her husband. Years of separation or desertion cannot alter this position. Unless divorced by special enactment in the House of Lords, the legal fiction holds her to be “one” with her husband, even though she may never see or hear of him.
She has no possessions, unless by special settlement; her property is his property. Lord Ellenborough mentions a case in which a sailor bequeathed “all he was worth” to a woman he cohabited with; and afterwards married, in the West Indies, a woman of considerable fortune. At this man’s death it was held, - notwithstanding the hardship of the case, - that the will swept away from his widow, in favour of his mistress, every shilling of the property. It is now provided that a will shall be revoked by marriage: but the claim of the husband to all that is his wife’s exists in full force. An English wife has no legal right even to her clothes or ornaments; her husband may take them and sell them if he pleases, even though they be the gifts of relatives or friends, or bought before marriage.
An English wife cannot make a will. She may have children or kindred whom she may earnestly desire to benefit; - she may be separated from her husband, who may be living with a mistress; no matter: the law gives what she has to him, and no will she could make would be valid.
An English wife cannot legally claim her own earnings. Whether wages for manual labour, or payment for intellectual exertion, whether she weed potatoes, or keep a school, her salary is the husband’s; and he could compel a second payment, and treat the first as void, if paid to the wife without his sanction.
An English wife may not leave her husband’s house. Not only can he sue her for “restitution of conjugal rights,” but he has a right to enter the house of any friend or relation with whom she may take refuge, and who may “harbour her,” – as it is termed, - and carry her away by force, with or without the aid of the police.
If the wife sue for separation for cruelty, it must be “cruelty that endangers life or limb,” and if she has once forgiven, or , in legal phrase, “condoned” his offences, she cannot plead them; through her past forgiveness only proves that she endured as long as endurance was possible.
If her husband take proceedings for a divorce, she is not, in the first instance, allowed to defend herself. She has no means of proving the falsehood of his allegations. She is not represented by attorney, nor permitted to be considered a party to the suit between him and her supposed lover, for ‘damages.’ ”
Remarks upon the Law of Marriage and Divorce,
suggested by the Hon Mrs Norton’s letter to the Queen.
47pp. James Ridgway, London, 1855.
REEL FOUR
The Wife and Woman’s Reward.
3 vols, 308, 311 and 297pp. Saunders and Otley, London, 1835.
These two stories, The Wife and Woman’s Reward, were closely based on her own experiences.
Tales and Sketches in prose and verse.
(Churton’s Library for the Million, Part III.
Part I was A History of Charlemagne by G P R James
and Part II was History of the Conquest of Mexico by the Revd J Hobart Caunter.)
vi + 188pp. Churton, London, 1850.
Contents: Page
The Forsaken Child (1)
On Reading an Old Letter (29)
Kate Bouverie (33)
Christmas (48)
The Coquette (54)
The Friend of our Early Days (70)
The Forsaken (72)
The Lost Election (74)
Mona Water (88)
Lines on Seeing Mr. Landseer’s Picture of the Death of a Stag (93)
The Forsaken (97)
The Young Heir’s Death-Bed (104)
Lines )109)
“I do not Ask thy Love from Fate” (111)
The Spirit of the Hurricane (113)
The Traitor (128)
Lament of the Poet Savage (133)
Summer’s Gone (138)
To Lady Graham. On New Year’s Day (140)
On the Death of Sir Walter Scott (142)
The Farewell (144)
Night (146)
The Broken Vow (148)
The Two Harps (157)
Lines (159)
The Two Pictures (160)
Song of the Irish Peasant Wife (164)
Curious Customs in the County of Middlesex (165)
The Haunted Wood of Amesoy (181)
REEL FIVE
Stuart of Dunleath: A Story of Modern Times.
3 vols, xii + 290, 299 and 345pp. Colburn & Co, London, 1851.
Like many of Caroline Norton’s prose works this novel boasts a very fine opening. It is written in a conversational style and goes from the specific to the universal and back again, pondering on the profound effects that the delivery of the morning post can have.
“ CHAPTER I. A LETTER.
THE post has just come in. A common-place everyday occurrence; connected in the general mind with pasted stamps and Christmas-boxes. No longer the romantic event it used to be, when, with piquant irregularity, unexpected messengers alighted from their reeking steeds at the gates of fair castles, and presented on bended knee, some solitary missive confided to their charge. A mere matter of course; not to be thought of in any other light.
And yet it is a startling reflection, that, at a particular hour of the morning, there is to thousands of the millions a second waking as it were; a waking of the heart after the waking of the body. Thousands are astir, each in his separate home; all occupied with a similar interest; the chief, perhaps the only point of sympathy, in their various lives.
The post is come in. “ A noun of multitude, signifying many.” The epistles which lay huddled together in the mail-bag, have been sorted and delivered according to their several addresses. They have been scattered along the rows of houses like seed in a ploughed furrow, and according to the seed sown, is the crop raised; tears for some, and smiles for others; joy and grief, like unseen spirits, entering with the post.
The letters are come.
That far-travelled treasure, the ship-letter, with its news from distant climes: - the love-letter; the remittance, or refusal to remit; the attorney’s letter, with a threat of “ulterior measures,” terrible in its vagueness; the maternal counsel; the keen and bitter reproach; the half-jesting, half scandalous gossip, immediately to be repeated and multiplied as though a stereotyped edition were called for; the vain appeal, written with anguish, blotted with tears; the letter of empty compliment or ceremony; the black-edged, black-sealed, ominous-looking announcement or the death of a friend or relation – all these have arrived at their destination.
How troubled is the stream of life’s waters as the spirit of the hour passes over its face. If we could look into these homes whose blank windows and closed doors wear so exactly the same aspect as they did an hour ago, what changes we might behold! There sits a matron weeping; her gentle girls are weeping too; they rose cheerfully this morning; all was as usual; the morning-prayer, the household task, the plans for the morrow; but the storm has swept over them. They know themselves widowed and orphaned - since the post came in.”
The Rose of Jericho.
(Translated from the French.)
Called by the Germans, “Weinachts-Rose;” or, Christmas Rose.
viii + 162 + xvipp. Tinsley Brothers, London, 1870.
REEL SIX
Lost and Saved.
3 vols, x +294, vi + 301 and vi + 308pp. Hurst and Blackett, Publishers, successors to Henry Colburn, London, 1863.
The Times declared that “Lost and Saved will be read with eager interest. It is a vigorous novel.” The Examiner called it, “A novel of rare excellence. It is Mrs Norton’s best prose work.” It gained a reputation as a scandalous work - with a central theme of illicit love - and many readers inevitably drew parallels with Caroline Norton’s own life story.
REEL SEVEN
Old Sir Douglas.
3 vols, vii + 308, 307 and 308pp. Hurst and Blackett, London, 1868.
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