Rosamund Marriott Watson (née Ball; 6 October 1860 – 29 December 1911) was an English poet, nature writer and critic, who early in her career wrote under the pseudonyms Graham R. Tomson and Rushworth (or R.) Armytage.

Early life and education

Rosamund Ball, known as Rose, was born in LondonUniversity of Iowa's "Wiki
Retrieved 9 March 2018.
/ref> on 6 October 1860, the fifth child of Benjamin Williams Ball, an accountant and amateur poet, and Sylvia (Good) Ball. Her older brother Wilfrid Ball became a painter of landscapes and marine subjects who helped introduce her to London's literary circles, including John Lane, the influential publisher of ''

The Yellow Book ''The Yellow Book'' was a British quarterly literary periodical that was published in London from 1894 to 1897. It was published at The Bodley Head Publishing House by Elkin Mathews and John Lane, and later by John Lane alone, and edited by th ...

''. Her mother died of cancer when she was just 13, and she would later recall as one consequence of this that she had an unusual amount of freedom for reading and writing. No records of any formal education for her have been found. She initially intended to become a painter, but her father forbade it; her aesthetic sensibilities would later shape her writing about gardens and interior design.

Career

Watson began her writing career in 1883, with a column on modern fashion for ''

The Fortnightly Review ''The Fortnightly Review'' was one of the most prominent and influential magazines in nineteenth-century England. It was founded in 1865 by Anthony Trollope, Frederic Harrison, Edward Spencer Beesly, and six others with an investment of £9,00 ...

''. She followed this up with other magazine writing, and by 1886 she had her first poems printed in the American periodicals ''

Scribner's Magazine ''Scribner's Magazine'' was an American periodical published by the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons from January 1887 to May 1939. ''Scribner's Magazine'' was the second magazine out of the Scribner's firm, after the publication of ' ...

'' and ''The'' ''Independent''. These early works were mostly published under one or other of the Armytage pseudonyms, which she adopted following her 1879 marriage to George Francis Armytage, a rich Australian. Their daughter Eulalie was born the following year, but by September 1884, when their second daughter, Daphne, was born, the couple had parted ways and would later divorce. Around 1886, she eloped with the artist Arthur Graham Tomson, shortly afterwards dropping the Armytage pseudonym in favor of "Graham R. Tomson". During her years with Tomson, they lived in London and often summered in Cornwall. She later divorced Tomson as well and lived with the novelist H. B. Marriott Watson until her death; they never married, although some of her obituaries referred to her as his wife. They had a son, Richard, who was killed in the First World War. Watson's major success came from her poetry, which stood in the lineages of

Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

and

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without, at its best, being derivative. Technically accomplished, Watson deployed a wide range of poetic forms and methods, including sonnets, ballads, rondeaux, villanelles, poems in dialect and translations. Her subject matter ranged from nature, the supernatural, legends and folk tales to love, loss, and art itself. Although the poems can be mannered, her clarity of insight and feminist rereadings of traditional stories have kept her work fresh, while her penchant for formal experimentation presaged

modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

. Watson's poems were published in various contemporary magazines and journals, including ''The Yellow Book''. Her major volumes of poetry were ''Tares'' (1884), ''The Bird-Bride'' (1886), ''A Summer Night'' (1891), ''Vespertilia and Other Verses'' (1895), and ''After Sunset'' (1904). ''Tares'', which was published as her first marriage was breaking up and focuses on the disillusionments of love, was issued anonymously. Watson used the Tomson pseudonym for ''The Bird-Bride'' and for the first edition of ''A Summer Night''. In working under pseudonyms, Watson was part of a late 19th-century trend among women writers trying to break into male-dominated literary circles; among her contemporaries pursuing the same course were Mary N. Murfree ("Charles Egbert Craddock") and Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright ("George Egerton"). It appears to have helped her, since the influential editor

Andrew Lang Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University o ...

praised one of her early poems under the belief that it was by a man. Once Watson established herself in London's literary scene, later editions of ''A Summer Night'' carried her real name, as did her subsequent books, including the 1900 novel ''An Island Rose''. Watson wrote prolifically on gardening, and her essays on the subject (together with a few of her poems) were published in ''The Heart of a Garden'' (1906). She also wrote several columns on interior design and fashion—her first-ever publication, in 1883, was a column on 'modern' fashion for the ''Fortnightly Review''. Some of these columns were collected in ''The Art of the House'' (1897). She wrote a column entitled "Wares of Autolycous" for the ''Pall Mall Gazette''. Starting in 1892, Watson edited the magazine ''Sylvia's Journal'', which was a progressive, feminist-leaning women's monthly that covered a range of topics from work and art to the domestic sphere. Contributors under her tenure included Violet Hunt, Edith Nesbit, and others, and Watson herself wrote a book column, "Book Gossip". In 1892, a long interview with Watson was published in

Arnold Bennett Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 – 27 March 1931) was an English author, best known as a novelist. He wrote prolifically: between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboratio ...

's journal ''Woman''. Watson died of cancer on 29 December 1911 at the age of fifty-one. Her collected poems were published in 1912 with an introduction by H.B. Marriott Watson.

Books

Verse

*''Tares: a Book of Verses'' (1884; first edition carries no author name) *''The Bird-Bride: a Volume of Ballads and Sonnets'' (1889; as Tomson) *''A Summer Night and Other Poems'' (1891 as Tomson; 1895 as Watson) *''Vespertilia and Other Verses'' (1895) *''Old Books, Fresh Flowers'' (1899) *''The Patchwork Quilt'' (1900) *''After Sunset'' (1904) *''The Poems of Rosamund Marriott Watson'' (1912)

Nonfiction

*''The Art of the House'' (1897) *''The Heart of a Garden'' (1906) *''The Lamp and the Lute'' (1912)

Fiction

*''An Island Rose'' (1900)

References

External links

* * * *Archival material at {{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Rosamund Marriott English art critics 1860 births 1911 deaths 19th-century English poets 20th-century English poets English women poets 19th-century pseudonymous writers 20th-century pseudonymous writers Pseudonymous women writers British women art critics 19th-century English non-fiction writers 20th-century English non-fiction writers English women non-fiction writers