Caroline Anne Southey - Penury and Poetry

Penury and Poetry

Mismanagement by a guardian left Bowles in financial difficulties after her mother's death in 1817. These were alleviated partly by an annuity of £150 from an adopted son of her father, Colonel Bruce, but were a spur to seek to publish a "metrical verse tale" she had written. She wrote for advice first to the poet laureate, Robert Southey, her future husband, but his publisher, John Murray was discouraging, then to the poet and editor

Bowles's first meeting with Southey in 1820 led to a proposal that they jointly write an epic poem about Robin Hood, although this only yielded Robin Hood: A Fragment after Southey's death. From the outset she could not work in the curious metre Southey chose: "I have been at work trying that metre of 'Thalaba', a fine work I make of it! It is to me just like attempting to drive a tilbury in a tram-road," she wrote to him.

Most of the fragment eventually published in 1847 was the work of Caroline Southey, including some fine sonnets on their marriage, which took place only on 4 June 1839, after the death of his first wife. There was a second edition of her mixed volume of verse and prose, Solitary Hours (1826), in that year. The marriage caused dismay among Southey's grown-up children, with the exception of his eldest daughter Edith. Within three months he began to succumb to senile dementia. He died in March 1843. The wrangles spilled over into gossip, and lost Caroline Southey the support of Wordsworth, for example.

Caroline Southey had to leave Southey's home, Greta Hall, immediately after his death, and move back to Buckland Cottage, where she ceased to write. Her marriage had lost her the Bruce annuity, but she was awarded a civil-list pension of £200 in 1852. She died at home on 20 July 1854.