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

Writing Women on the Devon Land A – Z of Devon Women Writers & Places Over the A377 at Umberleigh Track near Umberleigh House 'A private track leading away from the A377 across the Taw floodplain, giving access to several fields'. © Copyright  Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence . .      What often intrigues me when I'm out and about exploring Devon's lost literary links connected with women of the past are the occasional teasing facts which pop up unexpectedly out of the historical blue, and yet either report conflicting facts or omit tantalising details, leaving you wondering what might have been. Although through the centuries Devon has frequently played a vital role in many major historical happenings, perhaps because of its outlying position toward the western margins of our country, it is more often than not ignored - and especially in my line of research focusing on its women's past

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 (who we'd now consider obscure and obsolete) 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 more well-known Anna Eliza Bray , wife of the then vicar of Tavistock.  The Old Vicarage in Tavistock       I

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