Author: Godwin, Catherine Grace (1798-1845)
Title: The Wanderer's Legacy; a Collection of Poems, on Various Subjects.
Date: 1829
Biographical Information
Catherine Grace Godwin’s life certainly did not start off as an easy one. She was born on December 25th of 1798 in Glasgow, Scotland, the daughter of Dr. Thomas Garnett, a prominent physician of the time. Her mother died in childbirth, leaving Catherine and her sister in the care of her father. Her father died four years later, and the children were then transferred to the care of a close family friend, Mary Warboys. Catherine spent most of her childhood being raised by Mrs. Warboys in Barbon.
Both of Catherine Garnett’s parents were writers as well. Her father published a number of literary and scientific pieces, with some of the most acclaimed being “Treatise on Optics” published in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, “Zoonomia”, and “The Laws of Animal Life.” Her mother never published anything due to her premature death, but she was also an avid writer and poet. Catherine grew up with a passion for literature and writing, and completed her first collection of poems when she was just 15. However, she was not happy with how it turned out and burned it after it had been completed.
Her first officially published work, The Night before the Bridal: a Spanish Tale, Sappho, a Dramatic Sketch and other Poems, was published in 1824. This work has generally been regarded as somewhat “immature” but it did begin to attract the attention of several well-known poets like Joanna Baillie and William Wordsworth. Her next collection appeared in 1828, titled The Wanderer’s Legacy, this collection is examined extensively on this site. Between the publications of these two collections, Catherine married Thomas Godwin, who was a member of the East India Company’s service.
After her marriage to Mr. Godwin, Catherine spent a majority of her time in retirement, attending to her writing. Her health had already begun to decline at that time; however, the couple did make some excursions to nearby lakes and villages. It was during this time that she really began to achieve the poetic maturity we see in The Wanderer’s Legacy, the one collection that has remained best known. She dedicated this collection to William Wordsworth, who replied after she had already died. While she would never enjoy Wordsworth’s praise, his reply was a glowing comment on her exceptional imagination and imagery, even adding that she occasionally also excelled at writing in verse, something that too few contemporary poets could claim, in Wordsworth’s opinion.
Shortly after her marriage to Mr. Godwin, Catherine’s sister died tragically, accidentally burned alive near Florence, Italy, in 1832. After this traumatic personal event, Mrs. Godwin’s work changed drastically. She stopped writing poetry and switched instead to prose that would never achieve the same level of attention or praise as her poetry. In addition to writing poetry and prose, she also gained a reputation as a painter.
Mrs. Godwin was never an exceptionally healthy person, but her health began to decline seriously during the summer of 1844. During this time she and her husband took a trip through Switzerland and Germany, hoping that the travel might restore her health somewhat. Unfortunately, this did not work. She was bedridden for the last six months of her life and died in her childhood home, of a heart condition, in May 1845. She was buried in Barbon where Mrs. Warboys and Mr. Godwin would eventually join her.
Sources
Scott, Rosemary. “Godwin, Catherine Grace.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 23 Sept. 2004, www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-10888.
Wigan, Cleveland A. “Catherine Grace Godwin.” English Poetry 1579-1830: Spenser and the Tradition, 1854, spenserians.cath.vt.edu/BiographyRecord.php?action=GET&bioid=35253.
Prepared by Abbigail Mazour, University of Nebraska, April 2018.
© Abbigail Mazour, 2018.