About The Author & Poet
Celia Thaxter (born Leighton) was born June 29th, 1835, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Shortly after her birth, her family moved to the Isles of Shoals, a set of small islands off the coast of the New England states. Her family hopped around the islands, going wherever her father obtained a job. They eventually settled in the Appledore Islands, where her father owned and operated a hotel. Aside from living with her husband for a decade, Thaxter lived with her father in his Appledore Hotel most of her life, well into her adulthood. She often worked at the hotel to help her father. She is best known for her novels and narrative poetry focusing on nature. Celia Thaxter passed away suddenly at the age of fifty-nine on Appledore Island in her cottage on August 25th, 1894.
“Alone” by Celia Thaxter
This poem was written in the year 1861. It was published in The Atlantic Monthly. Alone is a narrative poem telling the story of a woman, Thaxter (presumably), who yearns and expresses her feelings through nature writing.
Online versions of the poems:
“The Sandpiper” by Celia Thaxter
This poem was written in the year 1864. It was published in a prominent east coast periodical, The Atlantic Monthly. “The Sandpiper” is a narrative poem telling the story of Thaxter on the beach of the family’s island observing a Sandpiper bird. She tells the story by describing her surroundings in detail through nature writing.
Celia Thaxter is an important poet to recover from this time period. This is because she was very popular during the 19th century, but soon became almost obsolete for the next century after her death. Thaxter is one of the few American Literature writers from the 19th century that has a few queer-coded poems despite the chance of retaliation from her society.
Other resources not listed: WHITE, BARBARA A. “Celia Thaxter (1835-1894).” Legacy, vol. 7, no. 1, 1990, pp. 59–64. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25679085.