May Probyn

Juliana Mary Louisa Probyn, known as May Probyn (12 April 1856 – 29 March 1909) was an English poet, one of a group of lively and somewhat political British fin de siècle poets.[1]

She was born in Avranches, France.[2] Her parents were the writer John Webb Probyn and Mary Christiana née Spicer;[3] and the novelist and short-story writer Sophie Dora Spicer Maude was a cousin.[4] She was the first love of William Satchell,[5] who published the first two of her three books of poetry. She published a novel in 1878,[6] and became a Catholic convert in 1883.[7] Among her friends were W. B. Yeats,[5] Thomas Westwood, the fishing writer,[8] Vernon Lee,[9] and Katharine Tynan, with whom in 1895 she published Christmas Verses, consisting of four poems by Probyn and two by Tynan.[7]

St Mary Magdalen, Mortlake

Probyn is buried in St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church, Mortlake.[10][11] Her grave is inscribed 'That, being dead to this world, she may live to thee'.

A number of Probyn's poems have been set to music, including "Vilanelle" by Jacques Blumenthal in 1899[12] and "Come What Will, You Are Mine To-day" by Henry Kimball Hadley in 1909.[13]

Works

• Once! Twice! Thrice! and Away! A Novel. (1878)
• Robert Tresilian. A Story (1880)
• Who Killed Cock Robin? (1880)
• Poems (1881)
• A Ballad of the Road, and Other Poems (1883)
• Pansies: A Book of Poems (1895)

Her poem "Is it nothing to you" is in the Oxford Book of English Verse.[14]

References

1. Marshall, Gail (2 August 2007). The Cambridge Companion to the Fin de Siècle. Cambridge University Press. pp. 234–5. ISBN 978-0-521-85063-6.
2. "Julian John Webb Probyn", Ancestry.com
3. Probyn Family at elgar.org
4. "Maude, Mrs William – Sophie Dora", The Catholic Who's Who & Year Book 1908, edited by Sir F. C. Burnard (London: Burns & Oates), p. 272.
5. Stafford, Jane and Williams, Mark, Maoriland: New Zealand Literature 1872–1914 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006), p. 232.
6. Kreuger, Christine L. (1 January 2009). Encyclopedia of British Writers, 19th and 20th Centuries. Infobase Publishing. pp. 277–. ISBN 978-1-4381-0870-4.
7. The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist, edited by Damian Atkinson (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), p. 84, n. 133.
8. Moine, Dr Fabienne (28 November 2015). Women Poets in the Victorian Era: Cultural Practices and Nature Poetry. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-4724-6477-4.
9. Canani, Marco (2014). Vernon Lee and the Italian Renaissance: Plasticity, Gender, Genre, p. 54.
10. Meller, Hugh: Parsons, Brian (2011). London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer (Fifth ed.). Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press. p. 261. ISBN 978 0 7524 6183 0.
11. Probyn, May
12. "Vilanelle", In Memoriam: Book of Ten Songs, Op. 102 (1899), no. 10
13. "Come What Will, You Are Mine To-day", Five Songs, Op. 44,(1909), no. 5.
14. Publicappeal.org Archived 11 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine at www.publicappeal.org

Sources

• "May Probyn", in Thesing, William B. Victorian Women Poets, 1998. Volume 199 of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

External links

• Works by or about May Probyn at the Internet Archive
• Works by May Probyn at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Poems
• Pansies