Dreams and Journeys: 'I do not know; but I remember well''

Fredegond Cecily Maitland was born in 1889.

Details as to the exact date of her birth and early childhood are rather scant. However, she attended Newnham College from 1910–1913.

In 1915 she married the economist Gerald Shove, who like her own family, had links with the influential Bloomsbury group. Shove was a conscientious objector who farmed as his alternative contribution to the Nation’s efforts. The couple lived together in the Bailiff’s Cottage at Garsington Manor where he farmed, and she wrote.

In 1918 she published her first poetry collection, ‘Dreams and Journeys’. Several of its poems were soon being used in anthologies and many are religious in tone.

Her inclusion in the annual publication of Georgian Poetry was greeted somewhat negatively by many as her place meant more progressive women poets were excluded.

However, her poems popularity brought her a decent income and wide recognition.

In 1922 her second collection, ‘Daybreak’, was published by Virginia Woolf‘s Hogarth Press, but to lesser acclaim and recognition.

During her lifetime she wrote a large number of poems but only a sprinkling of them were published outside of her two poetry volumes. Her study of Christina Rossetti was published in 1931.

Fredegond Shove died in 1949 and she was buried with her husband and other family members in the Ascension Parish Burial Ground in Cambridge.

© 2023 Portable Poetry (Rafbók): 9781835472590

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Rafbók: 1 december 2023