Journal Author: Tony Seward

Brian Lynch is an Irish poet and scriptwriter: this is his first novel. It is a richly textured, tragi-comic exploration of the life of William Cowper, a fellow-poet with whom he clearly feels a deep affinity. He insists that it is not a biography, but it would be fair to classify it as ‘fictionalised biography’,

This delightful engraving was something of a mystery to me until recently, when I stumbled upon its original source. I was familiar with elements of it, especially the three hares, which appear on a snuffbox in the museum, and the whole design, or parts of it, has been used from time to time to illustrate

The museum’s collection has been greatly enhanced by the acquisition of a unique first edition of William Hayley’s The Life and Posthumous Writings of William Cowper, in three volumes, quarto. This purchase was made possible by a grant of £1500 from the Friends of National Libraries, and a donation of £900 from the Friends of

Over the past 12 months (2003-4) the Cowper and Newton Museum has been active on its own behalf in acquiring significant objects for the collection, and fortunate in receiving donations from well-wishers. Here are the stories of two of them. Portrait of Mary Unwin (1724-1796) by Arthur Devis An engraving based on this portrait has

No object is too small to prompt his song – not the sooty film on the bars, or the spoutless teapot holding a bit of mignonette that serves to cheer the town-lodging with ‘a hint that Nature lives’; and yet his song is never trivial, for he is alive to small objects, not because his