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Cecil's Own Book

by Ann HAWKSHAW (1812 - 1885)

The wonderful adventures of Hasan the younger

Ann Hawkshaw's fourth and final collection was published privately and named for her young grandson, Cecil Wedgwood. Written for children, the volume alternates prose with poetry and is lighter in tone than her earlier work, although poems such as 'The Discontented Stream' and 'The Ambitious Water-Lily' are tinged with a sense of waste. The final piece in the collection, 'In Memoriam', is a moving elegy on childhood death, which alludes to Hawkshaw's loss of three children including Cecil's mother who died shortly after his birth. - Summary by Phil Benson

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Listen next episodes of Cecil's Own Book:
Change - not death; Earth's waters; The birds of passage; Homes of the flowers; In memoriam , Little Prince Bepettedbyall , The fairy gift, or the iron bracelet , The noontide dream; The squirrel that forgot that it would be winter; The ambitious water lily , The selfish toad; The discontented stream