Lucknow relieved by Campbell on this date in 1857
Daily Readings
- Robert Lowell’s The Relief of Lucknow
- Theodore Robert’s The Maid
Theodore Goodridge Roberts (1877-1953), Canadian novelist and poet. The Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature (1962) tells me his career was “long and distinguished, as befits a member of his well-known family.” He was a war correspondant during the Spanish-American War, and a Captain in the Canadian army during WWI. His poetry employed traditional forms and “evoked the atmosphere of the seacoast in the Canadian Maritime Provinces.” That was also the setting for most of his romantic novels. My guess is that “The Maid” comes from a collection of his Authurian poetry, The Merriest Knight, never published during his lifetime. But I’m not certain of this.
Looks as if some background reading is required for the The Relief. [Insert Rabbit holes.] From A Manual of English History (1905):
The Indian Mutany
British India had gradually extended its boundaries to the Himalayas on the north, and to the Indus on the west. There was but a handful of British soldiers in the whole of this vast empire, the garrisons in the different departments being composed chiefly of native soldiers, called Speoys, with British officers.
The government had decided to supply their Indian
The Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature. Max J. Herzberg. Thomas Crowell Company, New York. 1962.
A Manual of English History. Edward M. Lancaster. American Book Company, New York, Cincinnati, Chicago. 1905. 1st 1877.
