The Collected Works of Ann Hawkshaw

‘The Collected Works of Ann Hawkshaw’ brings together Hawkshaw’s four volumes of poetry and republishes them together for the first time. Some two hundred years after her birth into a large family of Dissenters in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the publication of ‘The Collected Works’ reflects the growing interest in Hawkshaw’s poetry and life. As the span of three decades between the first and last examples of Hawkshaw’s writing suggests, her poetry offers an exceptional insight into the changing political and religious landscape of the mid-nineteenth century. The themes of death, religion, science, history and nation that run through Hawkshaw’s poetry demonstrate her capacity for extended critical thought, as she engages with subjects at the heart of nineteenth-century cultural and religious debates whilst challenging the work of established scholars and writers.

Writing in a strong, independent and perceptive voice, Hawkshaw makes a valuable contribution to the Manchester poetic revival of 1830s and 1840s, and to political debates over abolitionism and the Poor Law Amendment. Her defence of natural theology in light of scientific progress and her skilful use of the sonnet sequence to engage with nineteenth-century historiographies of the Anglo-Saxon period are also notable. Elsewhere, Hawkshaw draws on her experience as a mother to write tender and poignant elegies on childhood death, addressing several poems to her own children and grandchild.

As well as providing a biography of Hawkshaw, who was married to the leading Victorian engineer Sir John Hawkshaw and related by marriage to the Darwin-Wedgwood family, the editor’s introduction and notes draw attention to several of Hawkshaw’s most significant poems and their critical reception, making connections between her poetry and the work of Felicia Hemans, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Wordsworth, Gaskell and Pater.