Emily Pfeiffer (1827-1890), from The Magazine of Poetry (1890). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Emily Jane Pfeiffer (26 November 1827 - 23 January 1890) was an English poet.[1]
Life[]
Youth and education[]
Pfeiffer was born Emily Jane Davis,[2] the eldest of 3 daughters[1] of R. Davis,[2] in Montgomeryshire, Wales.[1]
For a time possessed of considerable property in Oxfordshire, her father became before his death innocently involved in the failure of his father-in-law's bank, the chief banking institution in Montgomeryshire. The straitened circumstances of the family prevented Emily from receiving any regular education, but her father encouraged her to study and practice painting and poetry. Financial troubles at home, however, darkened her youth with melancholy.[2]
In 1842, at the age of 15, she produced her debut volume, The Holly Branch: An album for 1843, a privately printed collection of poems, stories, and melodies.[1]
Career[]
She found relief in a visit to the continent, and in 1853 she married J.E. Pfeiffer, a German merchant resident in London, a man of warm heart and sterling worth.[2]
In 1857 appeared her earliest literary attempt of genuine promise, Valisneria, an imaginative tale which (though much less powerful) may be compared to Sara Coleridge's ‘Phantasmion.’[2]
Conscious of the imperfection of her education, she worked hard at self-culture, and published no more until 1873, when her poem of Gerard's Monument (2nd edit. 1878) made its appearance. From that time forth her industry was conspicuous. A volume of miscellaneous poems appeared in 1876, Glan Alarch in 1877, Quarterman's Grace in 1879, Sonnets and Songs in 1880, Under the Aspens in 1882, and The Rhyme of the Lady of the Rock in 1884. A long journey undertaken in 1884 through Eastern Europe, Asia, and America was gracefully described in Flying Leaves from East and West in 1885.[2]
Pfeiffer interested herself in the social position of women, and issued in 1888 Woman and Work, reprints of articles from periodicals on the subject. She also desired to reform modern female costume, and wrote in the Cornhill Magazine advocating a modified return to classical precedents.[2]
She was also accomplished in embroidery, and she left to a niece a fine collection of her paintings of flowers, which are executed with great taste and skill.[3]
Her husband died in January 1889, and she never recovered from the blow. She wrote and published Flowers of the Night, later in the same year, but she survived Pfeiffer only a year and a day, dying at their house in Putney in January 1890.[3]
Writing[]
As a poet, Pfeiffer resembled Elizabeth Barrett Browning. With incomparably less power, she was uplifted by the same moral zeal and guided by the same delicate sensitiveness. Her sentiment is always charming. Her defects are diffuseness and insufficient finish; nor had she sufficient strength for a long poem. She succeeds best in the sonnet, where the metrical form enforces compression.[3]
Recognition[]
In accordance with her husband's wish, Pfeiffer had devoted a portion of their property to the establishment of an orphanage, and had designed the endowment of a school of dramatic art. By her will she left money to trustees to be applied to the promotion of women's higher education; £2,000 from this fund was allotted towards erecting at Cardiff the Aberdare Hall for women students of the University of South Wales, which was opened in 1895.[3]
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- The Holly Branch. privately printed, 1842.[1]
- Gerard's Monument, and other poems. London: Trübner, 1873.
- Poems. London: Strahan, 1876; London: C. Kegan Paul, 1878.
- Glan-alarch: His silence and song. London: H.S. King, 1877.
- Quaterman's Grace. London : C. Kegan Paul, 1879.
- Sonnets and Songs. London : C. Kegan Paul, 1880; Delmar, NY: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1998.
- Sonnets: Revised and enlarged edition. London: Field & Tuer / New York: Scribner & Welford, 1880; London: Hamilton, Adams / Simpkin, Marshall, 1886.
- Under the Aspens. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, 1882.
- The Rhyme of the Lady of the Rock, and How it Grew. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, 1884.
Play[]
- The Wynnes of Wynhavod: A drama of modern life, in five acts. in Under the Aspens. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, 1882.
Novel[]
- Valisneria; or, A midsummer day's dream: A tale in prose. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts, 1857.
- Margaret; or, The motherless. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1861.
Non-fiction[]
- Flying Leaves from East and West. London: Field & Tuer / New York: Scribner & Welford, 1885.
- Women and Work: An essay treating on the relation to health and physical development, of the higher education of girls, and the intellectual or more systemised effort of women. London: Trübner, 1887; Boston: Ticknor, 1887; Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[4]
See also[]
Peace To The Odalisque by Emily Jane Pfeiffer read by A Poetry Channel
References[]
Garnett, Richard (1896) "Pfeiffer, Emily Jane" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 45 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 139-140 . Wikisource, Web, Feb. 27, 2017.
Notes[]
External links[]
- Poems
- 3 poems by Pdeiffer: "A Song of Winter," "When the Brow of June," "To a Moth that Drinketh of the Ripe October"
- Peiffer in A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895: "A Song of Winter," "To a Moth that Drinketh of the Ripe October," "To the Herald Honeysuckle"
- Pfeiffer in Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century: "Love Came Knocking at My Door," "The Crown of Love," "Broken Light," "In Extremis," "A Song of Winter," "When the Brow of June," "Evolution," "To Nature (II)," "Dreaming," "The Winged Soul," "Peace to the Odalisque," "To the Herald Honeysuckle," "Gordon," "Shelley," "The Lost Light (George Eliot)"
- Emily Jane Pfeiffer at Wikisource (10 poems)
- Emily Pfeiffer at AllPoetry (167 poems)
- Books
- Emily Jane Pfeiffer at Amazon.com
- About
- Pfeiffer, Emily Jane (1827-1890) at Encyclopedia.com
- Critical and Biographical Essay by Alexander Hay Japp
- Emily Jane Pfeiffer at the Orlando Project
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Pfeiffer, Emily Jane
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