Memoirs of the Loves of the Poets.
TO UNA FROM THE FIELDS A WOMAN WRITES ON THE WOMEN IN THE LIVES OF WRITERS. Mrs. (Anna) Jameson. Memoirs of the Loves of the Poets. Biographical sketches of Women celebrated in ancient and modern poetry. From the last London edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863. 16mo.; frontispiece drawing of Dante's Beatrice; tissue guard; all edges gilt; blue cloth, elaborately stamped in blind and gilt; very light wear to extremities.
From the lovely Ticknor and Fields Blue and Gold series. Signed on the first blank, Una Hawthorne. Una spent several weeks with Annie and James T. Fields in Boston in early 1863. It is easy to imagine that the romantic Una would have been thrilled to acquire this book about the women who inspired some of the great love poems over the centuries as a gift from her host. The absence of book dealer/shop tickets or price markings or price notations of any kind lend support to this belief.
The Hawthornes were well aware of the writings of the prolific British writer and art critic, Mrs. Anna Brownell Murphy Jameson (1793-1860). Not only did the Hawthornes spend time with her in Rome, Nathaniel himself was treated to her opinions on various works of art one afternoon when they sallied forth together. Hawthorne observed that Mrs. Jameson could “read a picture like a book.” Una and her companion/tutor Miss Ada Shepard spent time in Rome quite wrapped up in the writings of Mrs. Jameson.
The book contains biographical sketches of the wives and lovers of great poets including Petrarch, Milton, Chaucer, Donne, Spenser, and Dante. For each woman, Jameson describes how she met the poet in question and includes excerpts of writing she inspired.
Print Inquire