Book revives long lost works by 'remarkable' poet

A collection of lost poems and manuscripts written by a "remarkable" woman during the 19th Century has been turned into a book to honour her literary legacy.

The historic collection of poems written by Catherine Drew, known as The Forest Poetess, are on display at the Dean Heritage Centre in Gloucestershire.

University of Gloucestershire researchers Dr Jason Griffiths and Dr Roger Deeks composed the book using material from the Forest of Dean Writers Collection.

Deeks said Drew, who was born in 1784, was regarded as an "exceptional" figure who chronicled the industrial revolution as the coal and iron industry transformed the rural landscape.

The Forest of Dean Writers Collection archive holds more than 1,000 literary items, documenting 200 years of history in the area.

"While most of the material relates to the early part of the 20th Century up until the 1980s, Catherine Drew takes us right back to the 19th Century," said Griffiths.

"She's quite unique in that she's not writing pastural generic poetry, it's incredibly specific and very descriptive.

"There are real places, real people and real events in her poems, so they are incredible documentary accounts as much as anything."

Deeks described Drew as a "prolific" writer who created works that "resonated" with her contemporary audiences, documenting the changes unfolding in front of them.

"She saw the ironworks grow, the collieries, the railways. Enormous change all around her, and she set that change to poetry," he said.

"It was very descriptive, showing how the industrial revolution really changed somewhere like the Forest, which of course had large deposits of coal and iron that were exploited in that era."

The researchers said up until a few years ago, they were only aware of 10 of Drew's poems, written in 1841.

Since conducting a review of the archive, entire handwritten manuscripts were discovered on ageing paper with her signature scrawled at the bottom.

Her distant relatives, many of whom now live in America after emigrating there in the 1870s, have also loaned poems and her lace nightcap to the collection.

Deeks said for a woman with a brief education and limited means, she was "really quite remarkable".

"I don't think an ordinary working-class housewife with eight children would be able to produce such a terrific output of poems," he said.

"She was exceptional, and had exceptional circumstances."

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