Chatterton Square

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For Scotland, 2011 data is shown (update coming soon, the Scottish census was delayed by a year unlike the rest of the UK). a b Ogwen and Carneddau. Climbers Club Guides to Wales. United Kingdom: Cordee. 1993. pp.16, 367–8. ISBN 0-901-601-52-7. Kelly said: “His story raises more themes including artistic credulity and credibility, the role of the fake in art, young artists, arts and mental health, and the nature of celebrity.” Chatterton was born in the schoolmaster’s house of Pile Street School in 1752. His father – a writing master at the school – died before his birth. The family moved away to a relation’shouse on Redcliffe Hill after Chatterton’s christening in 1753.

As well as looking to the past, A Poetic City will touch on issues from Chatterton’s lifetime which are still relevant today, such as young people and mental health, and fake news. The political differences are drawn with too bold a stroke, there are no grey areas, and being overdone and lengthily hammered in, it becomes tedious. And then we have the distinct separation between the "good guys" (The Frasers and Miss Spanner)" who see Chamberlain's agreement with Hitler as an abomination, and the "bad guys" (Herbert) who approve of it. Here, Young developed an interest in classical and modern philosophy. She became a supporter of the suffragette movement, and started publishing novels. She also began a lifelong affair with Ralph Henderson, a schoolteacher and a friend of her husband.

Yet perhaps the greatest character of all, only ever alluded to, never exactly spelled out, is the looming likelihood of war. It's seen towards the end of practically every chapter as something forcing present day life to take risks or to delay decisions because who knows what might be going to happen in the near future. It feels like an ominous overtone and the book even ends on this overtone since it ends with "peace in our time" and we, the readers, know that peace won't last. Chiara Briganti and Kathy Mezei, Domestic Modernism, The Interwar Novel, and E. H. Young, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006

Chatterton left Bristol to pursue his writing career in London in April 1770. Just four months later, he died in what was once thought to be a suicide after his failure to find success and wealth but is now considered an accidental overdose. Either way, his death at such a tragically young age was part of what cemented his legacy as a romantic figure. I am reading through less known British women authors who wrote in the first half of the 20th Century and this is my first E. H. Young novel. A plaque related to Chatterton’s literary legacy lives on number 49 of the High Street in the city centre, marking the location of Joseph Cottle’s publishing business in the late 18th and early 19th century. Many of the first key Romantic works were published here and it’s also a stone’s throw from the birthplace of a prominent Romantic poet, Robert Southey. Although Southey’s original house at 9 Wine Street is no longer there, a plaque has been placed on a building in a similar spot today.Events are taking place throughout the year to reflect on Chatterton’s life and death as well as celebratethe city'scurrent vibrant poetry scene, starting with the Lyra: Bristol Poetry Festival (13-22 March). Although popular in her time, Young's work has nearly vanished today. In 1980, a four-part series based on her novels – mainly Miss Mole – was shown on BBC television as "Hannah". The feminist publishing house Virago reprinted several of her books in the 1980s, and the Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society has marked her Clifton home with a plaque. This was the first E.H. Young novel I bought, but it’s now actually the fourth one that I’ve read – Miss Mole, William, and The Misses Mallett being on my have-now-read list, with William finding its way to the 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About list. How does Chatterton Square fare on my list? It is a story of families and of marriages but also of the choices women had. An unhappy marriage, never married or separated (I don't think the author could have been too enamoured of the marriage state as there is no evidence of the other option - a happy marriage!) My copy of Chatterton Square by E.H. Young is a Virago reprint from 1987 and I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve had it sitting on a shelf all those years unread. It was the Undervalued British Women Novelists Facebook Group that I’m a member of that spurred me on to dust it off and read it at last, and I’m so glad that I did. It was my first book by E.H. Young and I loved it, it’s the last book that she wrote and is possibly her best one, subsequently I’ve read her Miss Mole and I didn’t enjoy that one quite as much.