Selected Poetry of Celia Thaxter (1835-1894)
from Representative Poetry On-line
Prepared by members of the Department of English at the University of Toronto
from 1912 to the present and published by the University of Toronto Press from 1912 to 1967.
RPO Edited by Ian Lancashire
A UTEL (University of Toronto English Library) Edition
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services,
University of Toronto Libraries
© 2012, Ian Lancashire for the Department
of English, University of Toronto
Index to poems
Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud, black and swift, across the sky:
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white light-houses high.
(The Sandpiper)
- The Sandpiper
- The Shag
Notes on Life and Works
Celia Laighton was born June 29, 1835, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and grew up on the Isles of Shoals. In 1851 she and Levi Thaxter married, came to live in Newtonville, Massachusetts, by 1856, and had several children. When she discovered that the editor of The Atlantic Monthly had published her poem "Land-locked" without her permission in March 1860, she started writing poetry and stories for popular journals like Harper's. Much of her writing was about the Isle of Shoals, where she eventually returned to work in her family's Appledore Hotel. Her volumes of verse include
- Poems (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1872)
- Drift-Weed (Houghton, Osgood, 1879)
- Poems for Children (Houghton Mifflin, 1883)
- The Cruise of the Mystery and Other Poems (Houghton Mifflin 1886)
- Yule Log (1889)
- My Lighthouse (1891)
- An Island Garden (1894)
- Stories and Poems for Children, ed. Sarah Orne Jewett (Houghton Mifflin 1895)
- The Poems of Celia Thaxter, ed. Sarah Orne Jewett (Houghton Mifflin 1896)
She died Aug. 26, 1894, on Appledore Island. For biographical information, see
- Celia Thaxter: Selected Writings, ed. Julia Older (Hancock, New Hampshire: Appledore Books, 1997). PS 3011 O54 1997 Robarts Library
- Thaxter, Celia. Letters, ed. A. F. and R. L. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1895). LE T3687k Robarts Library
- Vallier, Jane E. Poet on Demand: The Life, Letters, and Works of Celia Thaxter (Camden: Down East Books, 1982). PS 3013 V3 Robarts Library
Biographical information
Given name: Celia
Family name: Thaxter
Birth date: 29 June 1835
Death date: 25 August 1894
Nationality: American
Education: Mt. Washington Female Seminary, Boston: 1849 to 1850
Occupation: Writer
Residences
Watertown, Massachusetts
Portsmouth, New Hampshire: 1835
Appledore Island, Isles of Shoals, Maine: 1847 to 1894
Newburyport, Massachusetts: 1854 to 1880
Seapoint Beach, Cutts Island, Kittery Point: 1881
Buried at: Appledore Island
