Title: Coventry Patmore Collection (VMF132), 1890
Administrative/Biographical History
Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore (July 23, 1823 – November 26, 1896) was an English poet and critic best known for The Angel in the House, his narrative poem about an ideal happy marriage. Patmore was born at Woodford in Essex and was privately educated. He was his father's intimate and constant companion and inherited from him his early literary enthusiasm. It was Patmore's ambition to become an artist. He showed much promise, earning the silver palette of the Society of Arts in 1838. In 1839, he was sent to school in France for six months, where he began to write poetry. On his return, his father planned to publish some of these youthful poems; Patmore, however, had become interested in science and poetry was set aside.
He later returned to writing however, enthused by the success of Alfred Lord Tennyson; and in 1844 he published a small volume of Poems, which was original but uneven. Patmore, distressed at its reception, bought up the remainder of the edition and destroyed it. In 1846, Patmore was appointed the post of printed book supernumerary assistant at the British Museum, a post he occupied for nineteen years, devoting his spare time to poetry.
