Isabella Varley Banks

Isabella Varley Banks Poems

Isabella Varley Banks Biography

Isabella Varley Banks (25 March 1821 – 4 May 1897), also known as Mrs G. Linnaeus Banks or Isabella Varley, was a 19th-century writer of English poetry and novels, born in Manchester, England. She is most widely remembered today for her book The Manchester Man, published in 1876. Isabella married George Banks in 1846, after which, in the style of the times, she mostly published under the name of Mrs G. Linnaeus Banks, although she sometimes wrote under her maiden name, Isabella Varley. She had eight children (although only three survived into adulthood). Her husband George was a journalist and editor who worked in various locations throughout the UK. In the early 1860s, Isabella's eldest child died (then aged 14), and her sense of loss is believed to have inspired her to write her first novel, God's Providence House: The famous story of old Chester, which presented an absorbing story of love and adventure set in the days of highwaymen and plague around the area of Chester in Cheshire, in which one character lived on Watergate Street with "God's Providence is Mine Inheritance" written on its frontage beam, being one of the few houses not struck by plague. In 1865 she co-authored Daisies in the Grass: a collection of songs and poems, with her husband. The Making of William Edwards or The Story of the Bridge of Beauty was also their joint endeavour. Her many literary works included The Watchmaker's Daughter and Other Tales, Forbidden to Marry (two vols), More than Coronets (1881), Caleb Booth's Clerk: A Lancashire Story (1878), Glory: A Wiltshire Story, Sybilla and other Stories (1885), Miss Pringle's Pearls, and Bond Slaves - the story of struggle (1893), a social novel about Luddites in the North of England. Some of these works went through many editions, re-appearing several times during the 20th century, and some are currently published for sale today as print-on demand editions. Her book, The Manchester Man, first serialised in Cassell's Magazine before being published in three volumes in 1876, became her most lasting achievement. It is considered to be an important social and historical novel, charting the rise of Jabez Clegg, the eponymous "Manchester Man", from the time of the Napoleonic Wars to the first Reform Act. His personal fortunes, from the near tragic snatch of his crib from the River Irk, create a tale of romance and melodrama, his life from apprentice to master and from poverty to wealth, mirroring the growth and prosperity of the city. This is achieved in a politico-historical setting, with vivid accounts of the Peterloo Massacre or Manchester Massacre of 1819 and the Corn-Law riots (the Anti-Corn Law League was formed in Manchester in 1838). In 1896, the year before she died, a well-illustrated edition of The Manchester Man was published with forty-six plates and three maps. The book is still read throughout the world (following republication in 1991 and again in 1998), and its heroes, Jabez Clegg and Joshua Brooks, are commemorated locally in the names of Manchester public houses.)

The Best Poem Of Isabella Varley Banks

Bridal Robes

A BRIDAL robe should be
A dress to be worn for the day;
Then laid aside with all perfumes rare,
A treasure to guard with lifelong care,
A relic for ever and aye.

And never meaner use
Should sully its delicate snow:
The bride's last robe in her maidenhood
Should remain as perfect, pure, and good
As when it was donned I trow.

For ever a dainty type
Of her chastity pure and white;
Folded up like a rose in the bud,
Perfection hidden, but understood
By all who could think aright.

Text from the marriage morn,
In its silence speak thro' life,
Of duties, put on with every fold,
To change that life's silver into gold,
If love link true husband and wife.

And not 'till Death should call
The tried wife to his bridal bed,
Should that well-saved robe again be worn,
Or the orange-wreath again adorn,
That auburn or snow-white head.

And only wife who kept
As spotless her life as her dress,
Be honoured to wear her bridal gown,
Be honoured to wear her bridal crown,
When Death should her pale lips press.

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