Eliza Cook (24 December 1818 – 23 September 1889) was an English author, Chartist poet and writer born in London Road, Southwark.

Background

She was the daughter of a local tradesman. She attended the local Sunday Schools and was encouraged by the son of the music master to produce her first volume of poetry. From this she took confidence and in 1837 began to offer verse to the radical Weekly Dispatch, then edited by William Johnson Fox. She was a staple of its pages for the next ten years. She also offered material to The Literary Gazette, Metropolitan Magazine and New Monthly. [1]

Her work

Her work for the Dispatch and New Monthly was later pirated by George Julian Harney, the Chartist, for the Northern Star. Familiar with the London Chartist movement, in its various sects, she followed many of the older radicals in disagreeing with the O'Brienites and O'Connorites in their disregard for repeal of the Corn Laws. She also preferred the older Radicals' path of Friendly Societies and self-education.

In 1835, while only seventeen years of age she published her first volume titled Lays of a Wild Harp. In 1838, she published Melaia and other Poems, and from 1849 to 1854 wrote, edited, and published Eliza Cook's Journal, a weekly periodical she described as one of "utility and amusement." Cook also published Jottings from my Journal (1860), and New Echoes (1864); and in 1863 she was given a Civil List pension income of £100 a year.

Her poem The Old Armchair (1838) made hers a household name for a generation, both in England and in America. Cook was a proponent of political and sexual freedom for women, and believed in the ideology of self-improvement through education, something she called "levelling up." This made her a great favourite with the working-class public. Her works became a staple of anthologies throughout the century. She died in Wimbledon.

Works

• The Fair Rose of Killarney - A Ballad - By Miss Eliza Cook - Music by Stephen Glover (New-York Mirror Saturday 29 June 1839 pp 32 [2]
• Her article "People Who Do Not Like Poetry" (May 1849) can be found in the book A Serious Occupation: Literary Criticism by Victorian Women Writers ISBN 1-55111-350-3.

Poems (1859, poems)

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

References

• Stephen, Leslie, Sidney Lee, H. W. Carless Davis, and J. R. H. Weaver. "Cook, Eliza." The Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. XXII, London: Oxford University Press, 1921. (pp. 478–479) googlebooks Retrieved May 8, 2008
• Beeton, Samuel Orchard. The Young Englishwoman. London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 1875. (pp. 615–619) googlebooks Retrieved May 8, 2008

External links

• The poetical works of Eliza Cook at [3]
• New York Times, October 8, 1851, As we expected, our article on Miss Eliza Cook has drawn upon us the fierce wrath of a fair lady, who has written us a trenchant note, in which she declares that Miss Cook is a great poetess. Now, we by no means wished to convey the idea that ladies cannot write poetry. We believe and know the contrary to be the fact.