Veley, Margaret

(1843-1887)

   The daughter of an ecclesiastical solicitor, she was born at Braintree, Essex; educated mainly at home, she became proficient in French literature. Although she began early to write both prose and verse, she published nothing until 1870, when her first poem, "Michaelmas Daisies," appeared in the Spectator. Her first short story, "Milly's First Love," appeared in Blackwood's Magazine (1870). Her most successful novel, For Percival, was serialized in Cornhill magazine (1878). Other stories were serialized in the Cornhill, Macmillan's and English Illustrated magazines. She died after a short illness and was buried at Braintree. Some of her poems: "A Japanese Fan," "A Town Garden," "Game of Piquet," "Sonnet," "The Level Land."

   Sources: 19th Century British Minor Poets. W.H. Auden, ed. Delacorte Press, 1966. A Marriage of Shadows and Other Poems by Margaret Veley. Smith, Elder, 1888. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Harper's New Monthly Magazine. The Level Land, by Margaret Veley (pp. 856-857) Volume 61, Issue 366 (http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/sgml/moaidx?notisid=ABK4014-0061&byte=119475497). Margaret Veley, A Japanese Fan. The Complete Poem (http://themargins.net/anth/19thc/veley.html). Nineteenth-Century Women Poets: An Oxford Antholog y. Isobel Armstrong and Joseph Bristow with Cath Sharrock, eds. Oxford University Press, 1996. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). Victorian Women Poets: An Antholog y. Angela Leighton and Margaret Reynolds, eds. Blackwell, 1991.