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PT044
[Typescript Poem] The Neighbor's Children

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  4. 00018948_0004

Mary Webb. “The Neighbour’s Children.” Typescript poem, two leaves, 10″ x 8″, white wove paper. Twenty-seven lines, seven corrections. The original typed title, “Hannah,” and a typed line below it reading: “‘But Hannah had no children.’ / Samuel 1.2.” have been crossed out, and the new title is written (above the crossed-out lines) in ink. On the second leaf, “Mary Webb” is written in ink at the bottom of the poem. Mary is referring to the children of her neighbor, Mrs. Thorne. A remarkable and poignant poem, striking in the use of bird imagery, and expressive of Mary's yearning for a child. This typescript is a slightly different version from the manuscript poem in the archive.