Mortimer Collins

Mortimer Collins
Mortimer Collins
Born	29 June 1827; Plymouth
Died	28 July 1876 (aged 49); Richmond, Surrey
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Edward James Mortimer Collins (29 June 1827 – 28 July 1876) was an English novelist, journalist and poet. Some of his lyrics, with their "light grace, their sparkling wit and their airy philosophy", were described in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica as "equal to anything of their kind in modern English".^[1]

Biography

He was born at Plymouth, son of Francis Collins, a solicitor there, and his wife Maud Branscombe.^[2] He was educated at a private school, and after some years spent as mathematics master at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, he relocated to London. Collins devoted himself to journalism written from the Conservative Party perspective, mainly for periodicals. He also wrote occasional and humorous verse, and several novels. Soon after his second marriage, to Frances Collins in 1868, he settled at Knowl Hill, Berkshire and from this time he rarely left his home for a day and published several novels.

Collins died at Nightingale Hall, Richmond Hill, while visiting his son-in-law, Keningale Robert Cook, husband of his daughter Mabel Collins.^[3]^[4] His funeral was attended by many literary friends, including Tom Taylor, the editor of Punch, the novelist R. D. Blackmore, and the poets Frederick Locker and R H Horne, Percival Leigh, E. Owens Blackburne, Henry Sutherland Edwards, James and Montague Vizetelly.^[5] He was buried in St Peter's Church, Petersham; there is no memorial stone.^[6]

Writings

In 1855, he published his Idyls and Rhymes; and in 1865 his first story, Who is the Heir? was published. A second volume of lyrics, The Inn of Strange Meetings, was issued in 1871; and in 1872 he produced his longest and best sustained poem, The British Birds, a communication from the Ghost of Aristophanes.

He also wrote several novels, including Sweet Anne Page (1868), Two Plunges for a Pearl (1872), Miranda (1873), Mr. Carrington (1873, under the name of R. T. Cotton), Squire Silchester's Whim (1873, set in Devon), Sweet and Twenty (1875),^[7] and A Fight with Fortune (1876). His three-volume novel Transmigration (1873) is "a fantasy of multiple incarnations of which the middle one is set on a utopian Mars."^[8] Selections from the Poetical Works of Mortimer Collins made by F. Percy Cotton was published in 1886.

Collins is credited by the New English Dictionary with introducing psithurism to the English language. Derived from the Ancient Greek for "whisper", it was applied specifically to the whispering of the wind. This was observed (inaccurately) by The Guardian newspaper in an editorial of 30 September 1909 - reprinted on 30 September 2006 but not available online.

Notes

^ "Collins, Mortimer" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 692.
^ Mullin, Katherine. "Collins, (Edward James) Mortimer (1827–1876)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5947. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
^ "Death of Mr Mortimer Collins". Edinburgh Evening News. 31 July 1876. p. 2. Retrieved 15 August 2023 – via British Library Newspapers.
^ "Death of Mr Mortimer Collins". Sheffield Daily Telegraph. 31 July 1876. p. 3. Retrieved 15 August 2023 – via British Library Newspapers.
^ "Death of Mr Mortimer Collins". Richmond and Twickenham Times. 5 August 1876. p. 5. On Tuesday afternoon there took place in Petersham Churchyard the funeral of a well-known novelist, and journalist Mortimer Collins. He was a man of magnificent physique, and so full of power and life that his sudden departure has been with difficulty realized, and is a great shock to his many friends. On the previous Wednesday he came to Nightingale Hall, Richmond, the residence of his son in law Dr. Keningale Cook, in the expectation that change of air, and a brief holiday would readily restore a tired and overworked brain, and a body which seemed to have but temporarily fallen away from its usual splendid vigour. But the evil lay deeper than was supposed, and after the fatigue of the journey by coach from Berkshire, he fell into a state of weakness and suffering from which he was released on the Friday following by the "Death Angel" of whom he had loved to write. The immediate cause of death was rupture of the heart, which organ had long borne certain bad effects of an attack of rheumatic fever of some years before. He was only forty nine years of age. He leaves one daughter, and a widow who was his second wife. The funeral was conducted with the utmost simplicity, in accordance with the poet's own views, and the wishes of his friends. It would have been too inconsistent to wear the heavy trappings of woe for one who in his writings so constantly taught that death is no dark evil, but a glorious "coming of age." The service was read by the Rev. P. W. Nott, vicar of Kew-cum-Petersham. Present at the graveside were Tom Taylor, the editor of " Punch;" R. D. Blackmore, the author of "Lorna Doone ;" Frederick Locker the poet; R. H. Horne, the venerable author of "Orion ;" Percival Leigh, Lyttleton Hay, E. Owens Blackburne, Henry Camkin, Edward Legge, Sutherland Edwards, James and Montague Vizetelly, and others.
^ Warren, Charles D (1978). History of St Peter's Church, Petersham, Surrey. Richmond: The Manor House Press. p. 63. ISBN 0904311058.
^ XIX Century Fiction. Part I: A–K. Jarndyce Bloomsbury, 2019.
^ George Locke, "Wells in Three Volumes? A Sketch of British Publishing in the 19th Century," Science Fiction Studies, Volume 3 No. 3 (November 1976), p. 283.

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Collins, Mortimer". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 692.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.