A Woman's Sonnets
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840–1922)
Love-Lyrics & Songs of Proteus
London, [Printed by W. Morris at the Kelmscott Press], 1892
Gregory had a brief extra-marital affair with Blunt in 1882–83 over which she felt considerable guilt. At its ending, she gave Blunt 12 sonnets she had written in a disguised hand about the relationship. In 1892 Blunt revised these and, with her permission, published them under his own name as “A Woman’s Sonnets” in William Morris’s Kelmscott edition of Blunt’s The Love-Lyrics & Songs of Proteus. Morris’s wife, Jane—Blunt’s mistress at the time—wrote to Blunt: “I admire more than ever the ‘Women’s Sonnets’ series, they flow so sweetly and smoothly, no hesitation anywhere. . . .” This is an early instance of a male writer appropriating Gregory’s work, albeit with her acquiescence. Blunt and Gregory remained friends until his death in 1922.
: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
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