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Juliana Mary Louisa Probyn, known as May Probyn (12 April 1856 – 29 March 1909) was an English poet, one of a group of lively and somewhat political British fin de siècle poets.

She was born in Avranches, France. Her parents were the writer John Webb Probyn and Mary Christiana née Spicer; and the novelist and short-story writer Sophie Dora Spicer Maude was a cousin. She was the first love of William Satchell, who published the first two of her three books of poetry. She published a novel in 1878, and became a Catholic convert in 1883. Among her friends were W. B. Yeats, Thomas Westwood, the fishing writer, Vernon Lee, and Katharine Tynan, with whom in 1895 she published Christmas Verses, consisting of four poems by Probyn and two by Tynan.

Probyn is buried in St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church, Mortlake. Her grave is inscribed 'That, being dead to this world, she may live to thee'.

A number of Probyn's poems have been set to music, including "Vilanelle" by Jacques Blumenthal in 1899 and "Come What Will, You Are Mine To-day" by Henry Kimball Hadley in 1909.

Works

• Once! Twice! Thrice! and Away! A Novel. (1878)
• Robert Tresilian. A Story (1880)
• Who Killed Cock Robin? (1880)
• Poems (1881)
• A Ballad of the Road, and Other Poems (1883)
• Pansies: A Book of Poems (1895)

Her poem "Is it nothing to you" is in the Oxford Book of English Verse.

References

• Resources in your library
• Resources in other libraries

• Online books
• Resources in your library
• Resources in other libraries

1. Marshall, Gail (2 August 2007). The Cambridge Companion to the Fin de Siècle. Cambridge University Press. pp. 234–5. ISBN 978-0-521-85063-6.
2. "Julian John Webb Probyn", Ancestry.com
3. Probyn Family at elgar.org
4. "Maude, Mrs William – Sophie Dora", The Catholic Who's Who & Year Book 1908, edited by Sir F. C. Burnard (London: Burns & Oates), p. 272.
5. ^ Stafford, Jane and Williams, Mark, Maoriland: New Zealand Literature 1872–1914 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006), p. 232.
6. Kreuger, Christine L. (1 January 2009). Encyclopedia of British Writers, 19th and 20th Centuries. Infobase Publishing. pp. 277–. ISBN 978-1-4381-0870-4.
7. ^ The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist, edited by Damian Atkinson (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), p. 84, n. 133.
8. Moine, Dr Fabienne (28 November 2015). Women Poets in the Victorian Era: Cultural Practices and Nature Poetry. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-4724-6477-4.
9. Canani, Marco (2014). Vernon Lee and the Italian Renaissance: Plasticity, Gender, Genre, p. 54.
10. Meller, Hugh: Parsons, Brian (2011). London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer (Fifth ed.). Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press. p. 261. ISBN 978 0 7524 6183 0.
11. Probyn, May
12. "Vilanelle", In Memoriam: Book of Ten Songs, Op. 102 (1899), no. 10
13. "Come What Will, You Are Mine To-day", Five Songs, Op. 44,(1909), no. 5.
14. Publicappeal.org Archived 11 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine at www.publicappeal.org

Sources

• "May Probyn", in Thesing, William B. Victorian Women Poets, 1998. Volume 199 of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

External links

• Works by or about May Probyn at the Internet Archive
• Works by May Probyn at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Poems
• Pansies

• 1856 births
• 1909 deaths
• 19th-century English writers
• 19th-century English women writers
• English Catholic poets
• English women poets
• Victorian poets
• Victorian women writers
• Burials at St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church Mortlake
• British expatriates in France