O'Shaughnessy, Arthur William Edgar

(1844-1881)

   Born in London, he was educated privately, and in 1861 he began working for the zoological department of the British Museum, although his appointment without much experience aroused resentment among other naturalists. He made the study of reptiles and amphibians his specialty and was an authority on the subject. In 1873 he married Eleanor, daughter of John Westland Marston (see entry), with whom he wrote Toyland (1875), a book of tales for children. His wife died in 1879, two years before him. The opinion of his poetry was that he was the Chopin of words and covered a wide range of themes and ideas. His poetry publications: An Epic of Women, 1870. Lays of France, 1872. Music and Moonlight, 1874. Songs of a Worker, 1881. Some of his poems: "A Whisper from the Grave," "Azure Islands," "Bisclavaret," "John the Baptist," "Palm Flowers," "The Cypress," "The Fair Maid and the Sun," "The Fountain of Tears," "Zuleika."

   Sources: Best Loved Story Poems. Walter E. Thwing, ed. Garden City, 1941. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Poems of Arthur O'Shaughnessy. William Alexander Percy, ed. Greenwood Press, 1923. Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.