Selected Letters

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89) has long been admired as a letterwriter for the vividness, sense of humor, and honesty with which he expressed his opinions. Although he died young, his life overlapped with some of the great poets--Wordsworth, Tennyson, Yeats, Robert Bridges--of the Victorian era, and his comments on them are astute and revealing. This collection, drawn from the three volumes edited by C.C. Abbott, covers the whole period of Hopkins's life, adding some important and lesser-known letters that have only recently come to light. Ranging in date from his school days to his final years in Dublin, the letters include correspondence with his German master at Highgate, a rare letter written during the course of his priestly duties, one to an Irish colleague on the political situation in Ireland, a late letter to his brother Everard on art and poetry, and various other letters to his Oxford friends, to John Henry Newman and Coventry Patmore, and to his family. Together they reveal a man of great warmth who had a wonderful perception of natural beauty, and deep religious ardor.