{\b Jean Ingelow (pseudonym 'Orris')}.

{\b Date of Birth}.: 17 March 1820

{\b Date of Death}.: 20 July 1897

{\b Works}.

Tales of Orris  (1860), Poems  (1863), Stories Told to a Child  (1865), A 
Story of Doom and Other Poems  (1867), Mopsa the Fairy  (1869), Off the 
Skelligs  (1872), Sarah de Berenger  (1879), A Motto Changed  (1894), The Old 
Man's Prayer  (1895).

{\b Featured Works}.

'Song of the Old Love', 'The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571', 
'For Exmoor', 'Song of Evening', 'Songs of Seven'.

{\b General Comment}.

Jean Ingelow was born near Boston in Lincolnshire. She had many brothers and 
sisters, and all were educated at home by their mother Jean. The family 
produced a periodical, and it was here that the young Jean had her first work 
printed. Economic necessity forced her to begin publishing in the 1850s. Her 
output at this time consisted mainly of children's stories which she signed 
'Orris', and an anonymous book of poems. Her second volume of poetry was 
published in 1863, and had thirty editions. Poems  included 'Songs of Sevel' 
and 'Divided', a romantic narrative about a couple walking on opposite sides 
of a stream which becomes wider, dividing them forever. Her feel for nature 
and the emotional intensity of the poem have made it one of her most popular. 
She never married, and her distrust of the marital state is reflected in 
'Katherine of Aragon to Henry VIII' (1850), 'Brothers and a Sermon'(1863), and 
'Wedlock' (1867). However, she did also write poems which were optimistic 
about marriage.

Her most popular poem was a ballad about a sixteenth-century disaster, 'The 
High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, 1571'. She turned to fiction in later 
years - Off the Skelligs  (1872) and Sarah de Berenger  (1897) - as well as 
continuing to write children's tales. The most successful of the latter was 
Mopsa the Fairy  (1869) the style of which earned her comparisons with 
Christina Rossetti. When Alfred Tennyson died Jean was mentioned as a 
candidate for the poet laureatship, even though she was better know in the 
United States than in England. She died in London.