Festive Wreath

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By Listen TheBook Posted on Jul 2, 2024

In Category - Anthologies

Authors: Various In Year : 1842

Book Language: English

Audiobook: Festive Wreath

Preface, by John Bolton Rogerson
The Poet's Welcome, by John Critchley Prince
A Poetical Replication, by George Richardson
Love's Faith, by Isabella Varley
The Minstrel's Lot, by John Bolton Rogerson
Children Sleeping, by E. S. Craven Green
O Faded Leaf, by Robert Story
A Dirge to the Memory of William Grant, Esq., the Philanthropist, by Benjamin Stott
Sonnet - The Poets, by Robert Rose
The Lover of Nature's Farewell, by Mrs. Caulton
Stanzas, by Elijah Ridings
To My Daughter, by John Ball
The Flight of a Century, by William Gaspey
The Poet's Corner, by Alexander Wilson
Early Haunts Visited, by Richard Wright Proctor
Who Are the Living of the Earth?, by John Mills
Enigma, by William Taylor
To Mary Sleeping, by Thomas Arkell Tidmarsh
Gwynant, or 'The Vale of Waters', a Cambrian Scene, by John Scholes
Sharon's Rose, by Eliza Battye
Fame, Freedom, and Friendship, by Robert Rose

The Festive Wreath, edited by John Bolton Rogerson, and subtitled 'A Collection of Contributions Read at a Literary Meeting Held in Manchester, March 24th 1842 at the Sun Inn Long Millgate' was the first published collection of work by Lancashire Poets. Local poets had been gathering at the Sun Inn since 1840 around John Critchley Prince who was a regular drinker there. Spotting a business opportunity, landlord William Earnshaw, renamed the inn 'Poets Corner' and held more formal events, including the 'Festival of Poetry' with 40 poets iand a journalist from the Manchester Guardian in attendance, that led to the publication of the Festive Wreath. The Sun Inn Group, as it became known, consisted of a mixture of working class and wealthier poets, of whom the wealthiest was the so-called 'Bard of Colour', Richard Rose, a plantation owner from the Carribbean. It was a male-dominated group and meetings were often rowdy with singing and much drinking - the four female poets whose contributions appear in the collection did not attend the festival. The contents of the collection tend toward a classical style and several were written specially for the event. The most interesting contribution is, perhaps, Alexander Wilson's 'The Poet's Corner', designed as a drinking song to be performed as an interlude in the proceedings, which referenced many of those of who were present on the day. - Summary by Phil Benson