Author: WEBB (John):
Title: Haverhill, A Descriptive Poem, and Other Poems.
Description: London: Printed for the Author, and sold by J. Nunn..., 1810 FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 12mo, 159 x 97 mms., pp. [5] 6 - 119 [120 blank], including list of subscribers, contemporary half calf, marbled boards, title in gilt on spine; extremities rubbed and spine darkened, but a very good copy, with a contemporary autograph "Robert Roberts" on the front paste-down end-paper, and what looks like "Haverhill/ March 1877" on the recto of the front free end-paper. John Webb (1768 - 1840) was a weaver by trade, but also a frequent contributor to The Lady's Magazine. Koenraad Claes in an online article has this assessment of the weaver's career: "One reader-contributor who achieved moderate success within the magazine was the Suffolk-based "weaver poet" John Webb (1768-1840). Thanks to a few preserved personal documents we know more about him than about most other authors. Webb was an exceptionally productive contributor, publishing dozens of poems and causeries for the magazine from 1800 to 1818. These poems are mostly derivative lyrics that evoke bestselling poets of the period, and the causeries are moral reflections, often occasioned by walks around (the almost proverbial) country churchyards. Webb tells us in the handwritten memoirs that he left us, which were never published, that he was a pious man, likely a Presbyterian, belonging to the Nonconformist community of the town of Haverhill where he would be buried at the Independent Church." The review for the The Eclectic Review said that the poems "were distinguished by a vigour of thought, and a flow of numbers, which would do credit to a much higher class of society. The descriptive and biographical sketches are often touched with spirit, and the moral principles and feelings which are occasionally disclosed, merit the warmest commendation." Aubin: Topographical Poetry, p. 345; Copsey: Suffolk Writers, p. 515; Jackson: Annals of English Verse, p. 338.

Keywords: poetry weaver literature


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