Name Frances Cornford Role Poet | Spouse Francis Cornford Parents Francis Darwin | |
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Died August 19, 1960, Cambridge Children John Cornford, Christopher Cornford, Helena Cornford, Clare Cornford, Hugh Wordsworth Cornford Similar People | ||
The watch by frances cornford read by tom o bedlam
Frances Crofts Cornford (née Darwin; 30 March 1886 – 19 August 1960) was an English poet; because of the similarity of her Christian name, her father's and her husband's, she was known to her family before her marriage as "FCD" and after her marriage as "FCC" and her husband Francis Cornford was known as "FMC". Her father Sir Francis Darwin, a son of Charles Darwin, yet another 'Francis', was known to their family as "Frank", or as "Uncle Frank".
Contents
- The watch by frances cornford read by tom o bedlam
- Frances Cornford The guitarist tunes up recitation by Brian Paul Allison
- Life
- Works
- To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train
- References
Frances Cornford, The guitarist tunes up, recitation by Brian Paul Allison
Life
She was the daughter of the botanist Francis Darwin and Newnham College fellow Ellen Wordsworth Crofts (1856-1903), and born into the Darwin — Wedgwood family. She was a granddaughter of the British naturalist Charles Darwin. Her older half-brother was the golf writer Bernard Darwin. She was raised in Cambridge, among a dense social network of aunts, uncles, and cousins, and was educated privately.
In 1909, Frances Darwin married Francis Cornford, a classicist and poet. They had 5 children:
She is buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, where she is in the same grave as her father Sir Francis Darwin. Her mother Ellen Wordsworth Darwin, née Crofts, is buried in St. Andrews Church's churchyard in Girton, Cambridgeshire.
Her late husband, Francis, was cremated at Cambridge Crematorium on 6 January 1943.
Works
Frances Cornford published several books of verse, including her debut (as "F.C.D"), The Holtbury Idyll (1908), Poems (1910), Spring Morning (1915), Autumn Midnight (1923), and Different Days (1928). Mountains and Molehills (1935) was illustrated with woodcuts by her cousin Gwen Raverat.
She wrote poems including "The Guitarist Tunes Up":
One of Frances Cornford's poems was a favourite of Philip Larkin and his lover Maeve Brennan. "All Souls' Night" uses the superstition that a dead lover will appear to a still faithful partner on that November date. Maeve, many years after Larkin's death, would re-read the poem on All Souls:
Although the myth enhances the poem - it can be read as the meeting of older, former lovers.
To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train
However, Cornford is possibly best remembered for her triolet poem "To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train" in Poems of 1910.
To which G. K. Chesterton replied in "The Fat Lady Answers” in his Collected Poems of 1927:
Earlier, in 1910, A. E. Housman had written a parody in a private letter:
The first lines of this poem were spoken by a character in Agatha Christie's novel Murder is Easy.