Legends & Lyrics

LEGENDS

AND

LYRICS

ADELAIDE PROCTER

ASPREY & CO; LTD

L O N D O N

circa 1900

DESCRIPTION

Asprey Binding

(ii) + 331 + (ii)

Book measures 185mm x 120mm approximately.

Assumed to be an Asprey binding but not signed. Bound in full dark green slightly textured calf. Spine with five gilt-ruled raised bands with elaborate gilt decoration to each compartment. Elaborate panelled gilt fillet borders to both boards with further intricate gilt dentelle work to board inners. Plain light green end-papers and paste-downs. All page edges in gilt.

CONDITION

The binding is stable with boards firmly attached, although front hinge is a little weak. The boards exhibit a few very minor surface marks with some wear to spine top, and very mild bumping to corners. The spine has faded evenly to a tan colour.

Internally the pages are very clean unmarked condition with just a hint of mild uniform browning to the end-papers. Gilt page edges in very good bright condition.

Please always refer to photo images for a clearer indication of condition.

We are always happy to provide further photo images if required.

INTERESTING

Adelaide Anne Procter (1825 to 1864) was an English poet and philanthropist.

Her literary career began when she was a teenager, her poems appearing in Charles Dickens's periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, and later in feminist journals. Her charity work and her conversion to Roman Catholicism seem to have influenced her poetry, which deals with such subjects as homelessness, poverty, and fallen women, among whom she performed philanthropic work. Procter was the favourite poet of Queen Victoria. Coventry Patmore called her the most popular poet of the day, after Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Few modern critics have rated her work, but it is still thought significant for what it reveals about how Victorian women expressed otherwise repressed feelings. Procter's poetry was strongly influenced by her religious beliefs and charity work; homelessness, poverty, and fallen women are frequent themes. Procter's prefaces to her volumes of poetry stress the misery of the conditions under which the poor lived, as do poems such as "The Homeless Poor".

Procter never married. Her health suffered, possibly due to overwork, and she died of tuberculosis at the age of 38.