Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society. Just a short one from me this week to let you know that my chapter about Ellen Wordsworth Darwin (1856–1903) has just been published in a new book, From Darwin to Cornford, edited by Jane Firman and Peter Maber (Brill, July 2026).
I am SO thrilled to have been invited to contribute, and honoured that my chapter features alongside writing by authors I admire hugely, including Janet Browne, Frances Spalding, Samantha Evans and . It’s an academic book, so quite expensive as a hardback or pdf (though you can, if you wish, buy a chapter separately from the book as a whole). You can find more information about that, and the rest of the book’s contents, on the publisher’s website here. All praise to the editors, Jane Firman and Peter Maber, for organizing us all and making a much-needed contribution to scholarship on the poet Frances Cornford (1886–1960). I’ll be including an extract from my chapter here soon.
There’s a little more on the book below, plus a link to my previous post on Ellen Wordsworth Darwin’s work as an English lecturer at Cambridge, when she befriended the author Amy Levy. Thanks for reading, and for all your support here on Substack and elsewhere. Cambridge Ladies’ Dining Society wouldn’t exist without you!
From Darwin to Cornford The Evolution of the Poet Frances Cornford Volume Editors: Jane Firman and Peter Maber (Brill, July 2026)
This study presents the first sustained account of the life and work of the poet Frances Cornford (1886–1960). Scholars from across disciplines reveal her journey, as she navigated the scientic inheritance of her grandfather Charles Darwin, the patriarchal world of the University of Cambridge, and the demands of dominant poetry movements, through times of personal loss and depression. The volume brings renewed attention to Frances’s poetry from across her career, draws on previously-unseen manuscripts and photographs, and curates her memoir. Frances became a widely-read poet, winning the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1959.
(292 pages; 27 illustrations; Publisher: Brill; ISBN: 978-90-04-75468-3)
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