Dorothea Primrose Campbell
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Dorothea Primrose Campbell (4 May 1793 – 6 January 1863) was a poet, novelist and teacher from the
Shetland Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway, marking the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the ...
islands of Scotland. She wrote a novel, ''Harley Radington: A Tale'' (1821), and had poems and short fiction printed in London periodicals. Campbell continued to write in the face of family trauma, poverty, and ethnic and gender discrimination. Her melodic, whimsical poetry and her works of fiction are seen as revealing works that cover historical and societal barriers which Campbell herself was facing.


Life


Early family difficulties

Dorothea Primrose Campbell was born in
Lerwick Lerwick ( or ; ; ) is the main town and port of the Shetland archipelago, Scotland. Shetland's only burgh, Lerwick had a population of about 7,000 residents in 2010. It is the northernmost major settlement within the United Kingdom. Centred ...
on 4 May 1793 and was baptised on 11 May in her birthplace. Her father, Duncan Campbell, was a surgeon who had married Elizabeth (Eliza), one of the Scotts of Scottshall in
Scalloway Scalloway (, name of the bay) is the largest settlement on the west coast of the Mainland, Shetland, Mainland, the largest island of the Shetland, Scotland. The village had a population of roughly 900, at the 2011 census. Now a fishing port, u ...
. Dorothea was the eldest of the family, with a younger sister and two brothers. The many difficulties included long family struggles with debts from her grandfather, her mother's struggle against opium addiction, and the death of her father when she was just 16.


Teaching

Dorothea Primrose Campbell was well educated and appears to have begun writing poetry at a very young age. She later used her writing abilities to support her family. By 1812 Campbell had become a teacher"Archives of the Royal Literary Fund, 1790-1918." Location: London, World Microfilms. N.d. and in 1813 opened her own school in Lerwick. Through her family connections she met
Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...
, a distant relative, during his tour of the north of Scotland aboard the Lighthouse Commission's yacht. Scott was encouraging and even shipped her a piano for the little school she had established. However, the school closed due to Campbell's poor health and her mother's opium addiction. After the closure, Campbell worked as a schoolteacher to support her family. During a correspondence between 1817 and 1821, Walter Scott offered her moral and financial support. Nonetheless, court records reveal that she owed sums to creditors in 1822, 1823, and 1835. In 1841, Campbell was invited to move from Shetland to England, to serve as a governess to Dr Clarke's family, which consisted of his daughter, Eliza Frances Hook, and Eliza's husband, James Hook. Unfortunately, the Clarke family soon went bankrupt and Campbell was left unemployed in England. In the 1841 England Census, she is listed as governess to seven children of the Richard Smith family at
Stoke Newington Stoke Newington is an area in the northwest part of the London Borough of Hackney, England. The area is northeast of Charing Cross. The Manor of Stoke Newington gave its name to Stoke Newington (parish), Stoke Newington, the ancient parish. S ...
,
Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...
.


Perseverance and downfall

Campbell applied unsuccessfully for several jobs, but as a woman over forty and a Shetlander, the prejudices against her were strong. Campbell applied to the
Royal Literary Fund The Royal Literary Fund (RLF) is a benevolent fund that gives assistance to published British writers in financial difficulties. Founded in 1790, and granted a royal charter in 1818, the Fund has helped an extensive roll of authors through its lon ...
in 1844, having been unemployed for some time. The Fund paid her £30. Eventually she was also able to find a job teaching at
Sevenoaks Sevenoaks is a town in Kent with a population of 29,506, situated south-east of London, England. Also classified as a civil parishes in England, civil parish, Sevenoaks is served by a commuter South Eastern Main Line, main line railway into Lo ...
. In the 1851 England Census, Campbell is listed as living alone at 16 Quartre Bras,
Hexham Hexham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the south bank of the River Tyne, formed by the confluence of the North Tyne and the South Tyne at Warden nearby, and close to Hadrian's Wall. Hexham was the administra ...
,
Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...
, assisted by a pension from the Governesses' Benevolent Institution.


Death

In January 1863, Campbell died at the Aged Governesses' Asylum in
Kentish Town Kentish Town is an area of northwest London, England, in the London Borough of Camden, immediately north of Camden Town, close to Hampstead Heath. Kentish Town likely derives its name from Ken-ditch or Caen-ditch, meaning the "bed of a waterw ...
in London, where she had been living as an inmate at the time of the 1861 England Census. On 10 January 1863, she was buried at the former parish of St James, Hampstead Road, St Pancras, Camden.


Writings


''Poems'', Inverness (1811)

Aspiring to relieve her family's grim financial status, Campbell corresponded with the publisher J. Young, whose support meant that Campbell's ''Poems'' were published in duodecimo at Inverness in 1811. Records show that Campbell was only ten years old when she wrote ''Address to the Evening Star,'' which was not published until 1811, when Campbell was 18. However, one critic notes that Campbell's poems published at Inverness "do not read like juvenilia. They are flowing, expressive, verbally and musically skilled, whether in conventional poetic diction or more colloquial mode."


''Poems'', London (1816)

Source: Campbell's second, London edition of ''Poems'' appeared in November 1816. The subscribers were mostly from Lerwick and London. It included some poems from her first volume. It was remarked that "Campbell often expresses sorrow and nostalgia in exile and a longing for wider prospects." Campbell's straits appear as her "tone becomes progressively darker, dwelling on death and the slights meted out to poverty." The poems did not bring prosperity. The publisher may have gone bankrupt – only half the stock of 500 copies had sold by April 1818, though
Sarah Josepha Hale Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (October 24, 1788April 30, 1879) was an American writer, activist, and editor of the most widely circulated magazine in the period before the American Civil War, Civil War, ''Godey's Lady's Book''. She was the author of t ...
noted in ''Woman's Record'' (1853), "The character of her poetry, chiefly suggested by the wild, rough scenery with which she lives surrounded, is healthy in its tone and breathes of home and heaven." In this anthology, Campbell also made reference to fellow Scottish writer,
Beatrice Grant Beatrice Grant n. Campbell (1761–1845) was a Scottish author born in Argyll who spent most of her life in the Highlands of Scotland. Early life Grant was baptised in the parish of Kilmartin in the west of Scotland on 2 September 1761. She wa ...
, with a poem entitled ''To Mrs Grant of Duthell. On Reading Her "Intellectual Education".''


''Harley Radington: A Tale'' (1821)

In October 1821, A. K. Newman of
Minerva Press Minerva Press was a publishing house, notable for creating a lucrative market in sentimental and Gothic fiction, active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (1790–1820). It was established by William Lane (c. 1745–1814) at No 33 Lead ...
published ''Harley Radington: A Tale'', Campbell's one known novel. The tale, set in her birthplace, the Shetland Islands, impressed and interested a handful of readers. In 1823, William Scott Burn exalted Campbell's writing capabilities in a letter to his friend: "I read your Miss Campbell's Harley Radington when I was ill – that woman has very considerable talent, and should be encouraged to employ it oftener." Campbell seems to have been trying to fit her novel into a national-tale category along with concurrent works by others set in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. In a September 1821 letter to Walter Scott, she wrote, "I have published an attempt at a 'Zetland Tale'". Presumably, Campbell decided to subtitle the book "A Tale" over "A Zetland Tale" due to her uncertainty that the Shetland Islands would be accepted by the public as a novel "set in the regions of Great Britain," as Shetland was seen by many in Britain as a "little-known country" at the time. According to Penny Fielding, researcher and Professor of English at the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...
, "The novel focuses on the journey of the metropolitan hero to a distant part of the nation where he has family associations, and touches on questions of gender, superstition, ethnography, land improvement, and travel."


Campbell as Ora, the ''Lady's Monthly Museum'' (c. 1813–1853)

Recently found evidence shows that Campbell was a member of the '' Lady's Monthly Museum'' for some years, adopting a pseudonym, "Ora from Thule," under which she published 53 poems and tales. One of them, "The Apollonian Wreath," begins, O hail! thou solitary star! To me how dear thy dewy ray, Which kindly streaming from afar, Illumes a pensive wand'rer's way. ..For while beneath thy lovely light, The misty mountains round me rise, The world receding leaves my sight, And daring fancy mounts the skies. Forgetful of my sorrows here, Entranced, I muse on joys to come, – And far above thy lucid sphere My trembling spirit seeks her home. There are conflicting accounts of how long Campbell wrote for the ''Lady's Monthly Museum''. It appears she could have been publishing as Ora for any period between 1813 and 1853.


Works

*''Poems'' (Inverness, J. Young, 1811) *''Poems'' (London, Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1816) *''Harley Radington: A Tale'' (London, A. K. Newman, 1821)


References

*


External links


Works by or about Dorothea Primrose Campbell
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Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

Works by or about Dorothea Primrose Campbell
at
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

Works by or about Dorothea Primrose Campbell
at
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*
critical essay
on Campbell by Isobel Grundy *Campbell'
works as Ora, ''The Lady's Monthly Museum''
(1815) (Google Books) *An article on th
discovery of Campbell's pseudonym
*A
article on ''Harley Radington'' and the Shetland national tale
{{DEFAULTSORT:Campbell, Dorothea Primrose People from Lerwick 19th-century Scottish writers 1792 births 1863 deaths 19th-century Scottish women writers Scottish women novelists Scottish women poets 19th-century Scottish poets 19th-century Scottish novelists