Details

Title

Poems of Passion

Author

Wheeler Wilcox, Ella

Place of Publication

Chicago

Publisher

W.B. Conkey Company

Date of Publication

1883 Show more1883-01-01T00:00:00.000Z
1883-01-01T00:00:00.000Z Show less

Collection

L.M. Montgomery Institute.

Donor

Donated by Emily Woster.

Note

In her first journal entry after her long one that recounted her time in Bedeque and her attachment to Herman Leard, Montgomery noted that she had been profoundly lonely. She wrote, however, that she still had books “those unfailing keys to a world of enchantment.” She recorded reading multiple things, including Sienkiewicz’s ‘Quo Vadis’ and some J.M Barrie. Montgomery told her journal that she had “sent for Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s ‘Poems of Passion’ this spring. They seem to be written for me. I have _lived_ them every word” (‘The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The PEI Years,’ 1889–1900, p. 414). Wilcox (1850–1918) was a prolific American poet, whose name is perhaps less well-known today than is her famous line, "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone,” from her poem “Solitude.” This volume, ‘Poems of Passion’ was the first of nine volumes of poetry she published in her lifetime. 'Poems of Passion' (full text available for reading here) contains works that are personal, introspective, and emotional—perhaps even melodramatic to modern readers. There are poems about the passage of time, about remembering people from one’s past, and about all forms of love, clearly reflective of Montgomery’s mood in 1898.

Genre

book