Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life., by Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney. “Not Published” after 1875.
I’ve seen “Printed for the Author” on title pages before, but seeing “Not Published” on this one was a first.
The “preface” is rather appropriate:
In this book I have scribbled some innocent rhymes,
In various moods, and at different times;
Some grave and some cheerful, some merry, some sad,
Though none may be good, there are none very bad.
Typical of mid-19th century (written from 1811 to 1875) self-published poetry, this is full of “Bereavement” poems and “Bible story” poems. What is surprising to me is there are few (dare I say no?) poems specifically about Mrs Gurney’s husband or any children, nor any youthful “friends forever” verses. It could well be that Mrs Gurney wanted only to commemorate her “serious” poems, or she did write about such things but couched them in religious tones.