Beachy Head Publication and Reception History

Charlotte Smith

“Beachy Head”

1807.

Background Information:

•         Born May 4^th 1749
•         Was married off to Benjamin Smith at age 16.
•         Gave birth to 12 children between 1765 and 1785.
•         Was in prison with her husband for seven months.
•         In 1785 was legally separated from her husband.
•         Charlotte Smith died at the age of 58 in 1806.
•      Beachy Head was later published in 1807.

Composition:

•           In 1805, Smith wrote a letter to her publisher, negotiating for a new edition of sonnets.
•   Intended for Beachy Head, with Other Poems to be published after her death as the third volume in a tenth edition of Elegiac Sonnet.
•         In her letters to Davies, Smith mentions that she had been working on a long poem for several years,
•         She also writes that the work is a “local poem of near 700 lines…which is the only part of the work that is not actually ready.”
•         Beachy Head has 731 lines in published form.

      Publication:

•         The poem was printed as a collection of poems. Readers thought they were misplaced, so the publisher decided t have them included in this volume.
•         There was a heading with the title of the poem on every page which gave easy access to look at another poem.
•         Had “Notes” instead of appendices.
•         There was an advertisement instead of a preface explaining the delay of the publication and Charlotte Smith’s death.

Criticism:

•       Admirers of Smith included:
•        Sir Walter Scot
•        Queen Caroline
•   William Wordsworth
•   Samuel Taylor Coleridge
•         “…her use of the topographical and narrative mediation in blank verse (in Beachy Head was revolutionary and influential (Terence Allan Hoagwood).
•         “Beachy Head is more historically ambitious and more attentive to natural history (Theresa M. Kelley).” 
•         One autobiographer called Smith a “woman of her times, but she was truly an exceptional one.”
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      Bibliography: 

            Beachy Head and Other Poems. http://books.google.com/books?id=M-MyAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=beachy+head&source=bl&ots=7f8jFwq98G&sig=6WcjwXzjzkPcPU2k1ghnshLPQLs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8AdxUPHFDKGO2wXuhoDwDw&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ

            The Old Manor House, Volume 1. http://books.google.com/books?id=37UNAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=manor+house&source=bl&ots=WjZT9qDxnO&sig=DMR4T3y2kkIIZ3wu3b32L27j7OM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YghxUM-WI8LQ2wW0m4CgBg&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=manor%20house&f=false