Birth date: 
11/15/1869
Death date: 
03/24/1928
Birth town: 
Country: 
London

Charlotte Mary Mew was an English poet, whose work spans the cusp between Victorian poetry and Modernism.

She was born in Bloomsbury, London the daughter of the architect Frederick Mew, who designed Hampstead town hall. Her father died in 1898 without making adequate provision for his family; two of her siblings suffered from mental illness, and were committed to institutions, and three others died in early childhood leaving Charlotte, her mother and her sister, Anne. Charlotte and Anne made a pact never to marry for fear of passing on insanity to their children. (One author calls Charlotte "chastely lesbian".)

In 1894, Mew succeeded in getting a short story into The Yellow Book, but wrote very little poetry at this time. Her first collection of poetry, The Farmer's Bride, was published in 1916, in chapbook format, by the Poetry Bookshop; in the USA, it was entitled Saturday Market and published in 1921. It earned her the admiration of Sydney Cockerell.

Her poems are varied: some of them (such as 'Madeleine in Church') are passionate discussions of faith and the possibility of belief in God; others are proto-modernist in form and atmosphere ('In Nunhead Cemetery'). Mew gained the patronage of several literary figures, notably Thomas Hardy, who called her the best woman poet of her day, Virginia Woolf, who said she was 'very good and quite unlike anyone else', and Siegfried Sassoon. She obtained a small Civil List pension with the aid of Cockerell, Hardy, John Masefield and Walter De La Mare. This helped ease her financial difficulties.

After the death of her sister, she descended into a deep depression, and was admitted to a nursing home where she eventually committed suicide by drinking Lysol.

Mew is buried in the northern part of Hampstead Cemetery, London NW6.

Charlotte Mary Mew's Works:

"Passed" The Yellow Book, Volume 2 (1894).
The Cenotaph (1919)

Poems by this Poet

Displaying 11 - 20 of 28
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Madeline in Church 31 July 2013
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Monsieur Qui Passe 31 July 2013
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Moorland Night 31 July 2013
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My Heart is Lame 31 July 2013
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Not For that City 31 July 2013
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On the Road to the Sea 31 July 2013
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Pecheresse 31 July 2013
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Sea Love 31 July 2013
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Song 31 July 2013
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The Cenotaph 31 July 2013
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