Women Writing on the Devon Land: A County's Women Who Wrote - circa 1965

Across Devon Lands Looking towards Literature post Saxon Queens See Extract 7 from Writing Women on the Devon Land Exeter Castle from Rougemont Gardens 'As with so many other royal Saxon women linked with Devon’s history, Gytha’s life has descended into one of the dark ‘Her/storical’ holes, although there are glimpses of her movements transcribed within the manuscripts of contemporary texts, such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles.' 

Writing Women on the Devon Land  A – Z of Devon Women Writers & Places Tavistock canal Talking about Tavistock: Mary Maria Colling a C19 Maid-Servant Poet ...Green as an ivy you may be, Though not to be compared with me If I'm admired as thus I'm seen, Tis not because my dress is green: Know then, I'm more admired than you, Because I'm green and fragrant too'. ('The Ivy and the Myrtle', Mary Maria Colling). Mary Maria Colling frontspiece from Fables      Performance Poetry is not just a C21 phenomenon. Back in the early/mid C19, a woman poet regularly drew a crowd of admirers to the town of Tavistock , some of whom had travelled for miles to see and hear her pronounce her poems. Mary Maria Colling was a maid-servant who became protégé of the author  Anna Eliza Bray , wife of the then vicar of Tavistock.  The Old Vicarage in Tavistock       In a Literary Christmas 1836 , Ann Pulsfor...

The Crediton Quest 'The white crescent moon there up in the south, set within a plume of rosaceous sky high behind the moor, broods over the silhouette of the crepuscular grey and silvery tors. How many early missionaries exalting in the exact same sight tracked back and forwards on the tracks mazing across these western Wessex lands?' See Excerpt 4 from Writing Women on the Devon Land on the blog page  The Crediton Quest

Mid-Devon; Spirit of Place & Plath & Pedler North of North Tawton  'This topographical heartland of Devon’s palimpsest of invisible and lost criss-crossing labyrinthine landscapes and texts happens also to be the focal point of several of Devon’s foremost and famous literary sites. North Tawton is a place of pilgrimage for writers seeking other famed writers, for it is where the literary couple Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath spent the last years of their marriage.' See Extract 3 from  Writing Women on the Devon Land on the Blog-page - Mid-Devon; Spirit of Place & Plath & Pedler Near Roman road south of North Tawton See also From the Devon Ridge Where a Book Began

'The recognised notion of the literary history of southwest England’s C19/early C20 texts is of a distinctly male lineage, and indeed even now the prevailing view is that the ‘Victorian manuscript of the Westcountry' [i] was written in the context of a patriarchal culture'. Extract 1 The Canon - or Not?  From  Writing Women on the Devon Land See The Canon - or Not?  Cover of Williamson's Tarka the Otter See also From the Devon Ridge Where a Book Began

Writing Women on the Devon Land  A – Z of Devon Women Writers & Places Sampford Peverell Church & Richmond House once home of Margaret Beaufort Photo Julie Sampson Skipping Qs or Rs,  but Spending Time down in Sampford Peverell -  Looking for Mid-Devon's Literary Links with a King's Mother         For the first time, I'm a little stuck in this A-Z. If anyone out there knows about a link between a woman writer and a Devon parish beginning with Q or R (she should have been living in any period ending 1965 or so - the time period of Writing Women on the Devon Land ), well please do get in touch. She may have lived in the parish, or have written about the place or indeed stayed there at some point. I may have to give up with Q (Queen's Nympton? ) but R might be possible - Rackenford, Romansleigh, Rose-Ash?  Lady Margaret Beaufort Unidentified painter [Public domain]        So, ...