Charlotte Mew

Charlotte Mary Mew, born on November 15, 1869, in London, was an English poet and short story writer. She was the third of seven children born to Frederick Mew, an architect in London, and Anna Maria (née Kendall). Two of her brothers died in infancy, and another during his boyhood. Both a brother and sister, Henry and Freda, were committed to mental hospitals during their youth due to schizophrenia.  Mew was enrolled at Gower Street School for Girls at age ten.

Mew began her literary career with prose. She published a short story titled “Passed” in The Yellow Book, a London-based quarterly, in 1894. She published both poetry and prose in another journal, Temple Bar, between 1899 and 1906, as well as “Requiescat,” which appeared in The Nation in 1909. She published “The Farmer’s Bride,” first in the March 1913 issue of The Nation, then in an eponymously titled collection published by Harold Monro’s Poetry Bookshop in 1916. Its release brought her some fame. In March 1921, a new edition of the collection was released with eleven new poems. Her other collections are The Rambling Sailor (Harold Monro’s Poetry Bookshop, 1929), a posthumous work with thirty-two previously uncollected poems, and Saturday Market (Macmillan, 1921).

Throughout her life, Mew was very close to her surviving sister, Anne, and lived with her until the latter’s death. Mew died in London on March 24, 1928.