MANUSCRIPT: Castle Lea.
Cook, Eliza. "Castle Lea". n.p., n.d.: [but likely Worcestershire, ca. 1850s].
6-page autograph manuscript poem, 4to, descriptive of Castle Lea in Wolverley, Worcestershire; apparently written for the dedicatees, -- the owner of Castle Lea, the politician Joshua Proctor Brown-Westhead, Esq., M.P. and his wife, both of whom were so important to Cook's life and work that Mr Brown-Westhead was not only the dedicatee to Cook's book New Echoes and Other Poems (1864), but also to the “Complete Edition" of her poems: Poetical Works of Eliza Cook (1870).
Eliza Cook (1818-1889) was an English author, poet and writer born in London Road, Southwark. She was almost entirely self-educated and began to write verses before she was fifteen. She wrote four books of poetry, published a journal, and was a regular contributor to the periodical press. She was also a proponent of political and sexual freedom for women, and believed in the ideology of self-improvement through education. This made her a great favourite with the working-class public. Her works became a staple of anthologies throughout the century.
In all, 132 lines of verse, in eleven stanzas of twelve lines each: signed in full at the foot of the final page, “Eliza Cook”, with flourish beneath. Watermarked on 3 leaves: “Towgood / 1851". This version of the poem is two stanzas longer than the published version, and differs in several respects other from the published version which appeared in New Echoes and Other Poems (London, 1864), a book, coincidentally, dedicated to the same Joshua Proctor Brown-Westhead. In all of the published versions of the poem, Cook deletes their identity completely writing below “Respectfully and affectionately inscribed to **.” In this MS version their identity is made clear by the full title/heading: “Castle Lea / Respectfully and gratefully inscribed to its possessors.”
Castle Lea is known as a "lost” castle. It was built in 1762 with the profits of the local iron industry but was destroyed in 1945. In 1848 it was owned by Joshua Proctor Brown-Westhead, a former local MP and chairman of the Inventors Society.
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