Margaret Veley
Margaret Veley was an English poet and novelist born on May 23, 1843, in Braintree, Sussex. Raised in a conservative family, she received early education at home and later attended Queens College in London, where her passion for literature blossomed. Veley began writing as a teenager, and her first published work, the poem "Michaelmas Daisies," appeared in 1870 in The Spectator, showcasing her signature floral imagery. Throughout the next decade, she contributed numerous poems and short stories to various periodicals, gaining recognition from notable literary figures like Sir Leslie Stephen, with whom she maintained a significant professional relationship.
Veley's most famous work, the novel "For Percival," was serialized in Cornhill Magazine in 1878 and remains her best-known piece. Tragically, her family life was marked by loss, including the deaths of her sister and father in the late 1870s. Veley's writing often explored themes of courtship and romance, frequently culminating in unhappy endings. She passed away in 1887 from a throat infection, and her poetry was posthumously compiled by Stephen in the collection "A Marriage of Shadows, and Other Poems." Although her work faded from prominence during the twentieth century, recent scholarship has begun to recognize her as a significant voice from the Victorian era.
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Margaret Veley
Fiction Writer
- Born: May 23, 1843
- Birthplace: Braintree, Sussex, England
- Died: December 7, 1887
Biography
Margaret Veley was born in Braintree, Sussex, England, to Sophia Ludby and Augustus Charles Veley on May 23, 1843. Her early education was completed at home; later, she attended Queens College in London. She soon demonstrated a love for literature and began writing while still a teenager. Her work revealed her religious and political liberalism in spite of her conservative upbringing.
Veley’s first publication was her poem “Michaelmas Daisies,” appearing in 1870 in The Spectator. This poem exhibited the floral imagery characteristic in much of her poetry. Shortly thereafter she published a short story in Blackwood’s Magazine. In her short fiction, Veley often wrote about courtship and romance.
Throughout the next decade Veley successfully placed poems and stories in a variety of periodicals. She came to the attention of editor and literary critic Sir Leslie Stephen and from 1876 to the end of her life, Veley had a close working relationship with him, publishing extensively in Stephen’s journal, Cornhill Magazine. It was in this periodical that Veley’s most notable poem, “A Japanese Fan,” first appeared. However, while her writing flourished, Veley’s family life took a tragic turn. Veley lost her sister in 1877, and her father in 1879.
Cornhill Magazine published Veley’s novel “For Percival” as a serial in 1878. The novel was very popular, and remains her best-known work. Her subsequent novels were also serialized before being published in book form. During the 1880’s, Veley wrote three additional novels and many poems. Many of Veley’s novels and stories end unhappily.
In 1887, while still in her forties, Veley died of a throat infection. Her longtime mentor Leslie Stephen edited and published a collection of her poetry posthumously in 1888. This volume, A Marriage of Shadows, and Other Poems, contains many of Veley’s post-1870 poems, as well as verses Veley had composed to commemorate holidays and birthdays for her friends. In these poems she demonstrated her ability to present a realistic contemporary scene as well as an imagined landscape of shadows. Stephen also provided a biographical preface to the volume. Indeed, much of what is known of Veley’s life and work survives through Stephen’s efforts and the letters Veley wrote to another magazine editor, William Blackwood.
Although Margaret Veley was well known in her own day, her work was largely ignored through most of the twentieth century. In the early twenty-first century scholars began the task of reassessing Veley’s writing, finding there an important Victorian voice.