Biography of Augusta Davies Webster
Augusta Webster (30 January 1837 – 5 September 1894) born in Poole, Dorset as Julia Augusta Davies, was an English poet, dramatist, essayist, and translator.Biography
Augusta was the daughter of Vice-admiral George Davies and Julia Hume, she spent her younger years on board the ship he was stationed, the Griper.She studied Greek at home, taking a particular interest in Greek drama, and went on to study at the Cambridge School of Art. She published her first volume of poetry in 1860 under the pen name Cecil Homes.
In 1863, she married Thomas Webster, a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge. They had a daughter, Augusta Georgiana, who married Reverend George Theobald Bourke, a younger son of the Joseph Bourke, 3rd Earl of Mayo.Much of Webster's writing explored the condition of women, and she was a strong advocate of women's right to vote, working for the London branch of the National Committee for Women's Suffrage. She was the first female writer to hold elective office, having been elected to the London School Board in 1879 and 1885. In 1885 she travelled to Italy in an attempt to improve her failing health. She died on 5 September 1894, aged 57.During her lifetime her writing was acclaimed and she was considered by some the successor to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. After her death, however, her reputation quickly declined. Since the mid-1990s she has gained increasing critical attention from scholars such as Isobel Armstrong, Angela Leighton, and Christine Sutphin. Her best-known poems include three long dramatic monologues spoken by women: A Castaway, Circe, and The Happiest Girl In The World, as well as a posthumously published sonnet-sequence, "Mother and Daughter".
She died on the 5th September 1894 and was buried on the western side of Highgate Cemetery. Her grave (plot no.8187), which is situated above the cuttings catacombs, has suffered badly from tree roots.
Literary works
Poetry
Blanche Lisle: And Other Poems. 1860
Lilian Gray. 1864
Dramatic Studies. 1866
A Woman Sold and Other Poems. 1867
Portraits 1870
A Book of Rhyme 1881
Mother and Daughter 1895 Translations into verse
Prometheus Bound 1866
Medea 1868
Yu-Pe-Ya's Lute. A Chinese Tale in English Verse. 1874Plays
The Auspicious Day 1874
Disguises 1879
In a Day 1882
The Sentence 1887Novels
Lesley's Guardians 1864
Daffodil and the Croaxaxicans: A Romance of History 1884Essays
A Housewife's Opinions 1878
References
Sources
Crawford, Elizabeth. The Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey. Women's and gender history. London: Routledge, 2006. googlebooks Accessed 27 September 2008
"Webster, Augusta" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.
External links
Works by Augusta Webster at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
