Marvell and Charles Harpur

Abstract

Both the recent accounts of the growth of interest in Marvell, like that of Legouis before them, neglect to mention the Australian poet Charles Harpur. Yet Harpur's interest in Marvell is well wortlh noting, and was remarkable for its time. Born of convict parents near Sydney in 1813, Harpur gradually acquired a wide knowledge of English poetry, and had himself published five volumes of verse before his death in 1868. But his Poems of 1883 constituted a highly selective and emended text: like his contemporary Clough, Harpur suffered much at the hands of his widow. Selections of his work since have been equally unsatisfactory and probably most of his verse still exists only in manuscript.