Caroline Anne Bowles Southey
Caroline Anne Bowles Southey was an English poet and writer born at Buckland Cottage in Hampshire, known for her literary contributions in the early 19th century. The only child of Captain Charles Bowles and Anne Burrand Bowles, she faced financial difficulties after the deaths of her parents, which led her to seek support through writing. In 1818, she initiated a correspondence with Robert Southey, the Poet Laureate, which blossomed into a long-term friendship and collaboration. Despite her talent, she was often perceived as a melancholy poet, contrasting with her personal disposition as a lively and humorous individual.
Bowles gained recognition for her essays and stories, particularly in her 1829 work, *Chapters on Churchyards*, which vividly portrayed rural life. In 1839, she married Southey, who was already suffering from senility, leading to challenges in their relationship, particularly with his family and friends. After his death in 1843, she returned to her home and focused on editing his unfinished works. Despite facing criticism for her marriage, she also had supporters who recognized her literary achievements, which she continued to pursue even amidst personal turmoil.
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Subject Terms
Caroline Anne Bowles Southey
- Born: December 6, 1786
- Birthplace: Buckland Cottage, Hampshire, England
- Died: July 20, 1854
- Place of death: Lymington, England
Biography
Caroline Anne Bowles Southey was born at Buckland Cottage in Hampshire, England, the only child of Captain Charles Bowles and Anne Burrand Bowles. The deaths of her father and later of her mother left her impoverished; it was only when her father’s adopted son provided her with an annuity that she was able to retain her family home. Hoping to support herself through her writing, in 1818 Bowles contacted the Poet LaureateRobert Southey for literary advice, beginning a twenty-two year correspondence and friendship. When they met for the first time in 1820, Southey suggested that they secretly collaborate on a long poem about Robin Hood; although this project was never completed, it became a symbol of the deep affinity between the two writers.
In the the 1820’s, Bowles began a twelve-year relationship with Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine as a contributing poet, reviewer, essayist, and fiction writer. During these years she enjoyed a literary reputation as an accomplished, albeit melancholy poet, even though in her personal life she was a cheerful and sociable woman with a well-developed sense of humor. It was Southey who encouraged her to write more prose, feeling that she was a natural storyteller, as were her mother and her French grandmother, Madelaine Burrand. Indeed, her literary reputation rests on essays and stories gathered in Chapters on Churchyards, published in 1829, which uses the country graveyard as a way to bring to life the people of rural England.
When Southey first met Caroline Bowles, he had been married for quite some time to Edith Fricker, but in 1834 his wife’s mental condition was such that she was committed to an asylum, dying three years later. In 1839, two years after his wife’s death, Southey married Bowles, but a few months later it became clear that he suffered from almost complete senility. Devoting herself to the care of the ailing Southey, Bowles published nothing after her marriage, although all her books, which had heretofore been published anonymously, were now identified as written by Caroline Southey.
The marriage of Caroline Bowles to Robert Southey was the occasion of much dissension among the friends and family of Southey, and was a particular cause of rancor between Bowles and Southey’s youngest daughter, Kate. Finding it impossible to live with Caroline Southey as her father’s new wife and household manager, Kate left the family home and moved in with the poet William Wordsworth and his family. Although Caroline Bowles had been a friend of Southey’s for twenty years, and was at the peak of her popularity as a writer before her marriage, the Wordsworth circle saw her as an opportunist, taking advantage of Southey’s deteriorating mental health for professional and financial gain. Caroline Southey also had her champions among Southey’s friends and family during this time, however. One school of thought concluded that her own fine literary work was eclipsed because of her controversial marriage to the more famous poet and writer.
Robert Southey died in 1843. After his death, Caroline Southey returned to Buckland Cottage and spent her remaining years editing Southey’s unfinished biography of educator Dr. Andrew Bell. Although Southey’s son did not cede her the right to edit the rest of her husband’s posthumous work, she did succeed in publishing a volume of poems by herself and Southey, including the unfinished poems about Robin Hood they had worked on in the 1820’s.