I began my research into poetry written by women during the First World War by reading Catherine W. Reilly's anthology "Scars upon my Heart". Then I discovered her "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" and this has been my constant companion ever since. I always check there first when I am researching a poet. I could not have made much progress without those two publications, so I felt I ought to add a tribute to Catherine W. Reilly's wonderful pioneering research into women's poetry of WW1.
Catherine
Winifred Reilly was born on 4th April 1925 in Stretford, Lancashire,
UK, the eldest of four children. Her mother’s maiden name was Macaulay and her
maternal grandmother came from Ireland.
Catherine won a scholarship to Hollies Convent, a Roman Catholic Grammar
School in south Manchester, which was evacuated to Clitheroe in Lancashire
during in 1939.
When
Catherine left school she worked for the public libraries in Manchester. In 1947 she became Assistant Borough
Librarian for Trafford in Lancashire.
Catherine
is most famous for her war poetry anthologies:
“Scars
Upon my Heart*: Women’s Poetry and Verse of the First World War” and “Chaos of
the Night**: Women’s Poetry and Verse of
World War Two”.
For
her research into the amazing “English Poetry of the First World War: A
Bibliography” which took four years to complete at a time when the Internet was
still a dream, Catherine was awarded a Fellowship of the Library
Association. In that work she
identified 2,225 British men and women who wrote and published poetry or verse
during the First World War, with a section at the back naming some of the Australian,
Canadian, New Zealand, South African and American poets of the era.
In
1980, Catherine attended Merton College, Oxford where she studied for an
M.Litt. The result of that was “English
Poetry of the Second World War: A Bibliography” which was published in 1986 by
G.K. Hall & Co., Boston, Mass., USA.
For that work Catherine received the Besterman Medal for Bi*bliography.
Catherine
also published “Winged Words***: Victorian Women’s Poetry and Verse”
(Enitharmon, 1994) and was working on an early Victorian women’s poetry
anthology when she died in Sale, Cheshire, UK on 26th September
2005.
*Title
taken from a line in a poem by Vera Brittain.
**Title
taken from a line in a poem by Frances Cornford.
***Title
taken from a line in a poem by Mary Coleridge.
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