Folger Shakespeare Library
CELM

Octavia Walsh

1677–1706

Introduction

A few religious poems by Octavia Welsh were posthumously published in Poems upon Divine and Moral Subjects. Original and Translations. By Dr Patrick and other eminent hands (London, 1719). Otherwise a corpus of her poems is known only from her as yet unpublished poetical notebook (*WaO 1). One other manuscript of verse and prose writings by her was recorded in 1962 (WaO 2) but is at present untraced.

Verse and Prose

Poetical notebook

Unpublished.

*WaO 1
Autograph
Autograph poetical notebook of Octavia Walsh, written from both ends, 165 leaves (ff. 33-121 blank), in vellum.

Comprising some 42 poems, largely by her and in her fair copies, the last poem unfinished, with occasional revisions, two of the poems (ff. 151r-150r rev., 143v rev.) by her brother William, with three culinary receipts added in a later hand.

c.1691-1706

Inscribed Octavia Walsh her book 1694. The MS descended through her family, Barons Ormathwaite. P.J. & A.E. Dobell's sale catalogue No. 76 (1928), item 556.

Described in detail in the online Perdita Project.

Verse and prose notebook

Unpublished.

WaO 2
A quarto MS volume of works by Octavia Walsh, entitled The Private Entertainments of Mrs: Octavia Walsh In her vacant Hours From the Age of Fifteen to Twenty-Nine, At which Time it Pleas'd Almighty God by ye Small-pox to take her out of this World. A:C.MDCCVI, probably compiled by her family after her death, comprising some 33 poems on miscellaneous subjects and several prose discourses on religious themes, including a pen and wash portrait of her and some notes on the related Walsh and Bromley families, c.400 pages, in contemporary calf (rebacked).
Early 18th century

Book label Bromley - Martin, Ham Court. With a note by W[illiam] B[romley] paying tribute to Octavia Walsh and stating that the contents of the MS were found among her Papers after her death, till which time none of her nearest Relations knew that she was an Author. Peter Murray Hill's sale catalogue No. 82 (1962), item 33, with a facsimile of the title.

Private owners in the UK ([Octavia Walsh MS])

Contents