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Charlotte Smith - The Poetry Of (Audiobook)
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Read by Ghizela Rowe (Unabridged: 50mins)

Charlotte Turner Smith was born on 4th May 1749 in London.  Her early years were dominated by her mother’s early death and her father’s reckless spending.  At age 15 she married Benjamin Smith in order to rid her father of his gambling debts.  Charlotte was later to write that she now become a "legal prostitute".   Benjamin was violent, unfaithful, more reckless with monies than her father and completely unsupportive with her writing that she had begun to spend more time on.  In 1766, Charlotte and Benjamin had the first of their twelve children. She helped with her Father in law’s business and upon his death he left much to Charlotte and her children but this inheritance was tied up in legal wranglings that lasted for 40 years and became the inspiration for Dickens' central case in Bleak House.  

Her husband's spending landed him in prison and as was allowed at the time, Charlotte moved in to join him.  It was here in 1784, that she wrote and published her first work, Elegiac Sonnets.  It was an instant success, allowing Charlotte to pay for their release from prison and contributing to a revival of the sonnet.  Charlotte moved to Chichester where she began to write novels believing she could earn more from their sale and rather unusually publishing all her work under her own name.  Her first novel, Emmeline in 1788, was a success and in the next decade she wrote nine more.  However, despite their initial success, her finances were a constant source of concern and she was often in debt being forced to move home frequently and impacting on declining health.  

By 1803, Smith was again poverty-stricken with severe gout which made writing painful and later almost paralysed her. On 23 February 1806, Charlotte finally received some of the inheritance, but was too ill to do anything with it and died on October 28th 1806.  William Wordsworth described her as a poet "to whom English verse is under greater obligations than are likely to be either acknowledged or remembered".

 

In this compilation - 

01 - Charlotte Smith - An Introduction
02 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet I
03 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet II
04 - Charlotte Smith - Ode To the Poppy
05 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet IV - To the Moon
06 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet V - To the South Downs
07 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet VI - To Hope
08 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet VII - Sweet Poet of the Woods
09 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet VIII - To Spring
10 - Charlotte Smith - Beachey Head 
11 - Charlotte Smith - Love and Folly
12 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XIII
13 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XIV
14 - Charlotte Smith - The Snow Drop 
15 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XVII - From the Thirteenth Cantata of Metastasio
16 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XVIII - To the Earl of Egremont TWO FRONTS
17 - Charlotte Smith - The First Swallow
18 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XXVIII - To Friendship
19 - Charlotte Smith - The Female Exile
20 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XXXII - To Melancholy
21 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XXXIV - Charmed By Thy Suffrage
22 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XXXV - To Fortitude
23 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XXXVII
24 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XXXIX - To Night. From the Same
25 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XLI - To Tranquility
26 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XLIV - Press'd By The Moon 
27 - Charlotte Smith - Ode to Despair - from the Novel Emmeline
28 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet LVII - To Dependence
29 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XI - To Sleep
30 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XLII - Composed During a Walk
31 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet XLIII - The Unhappy Exile
32 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet LXVI - The Night Flood Stakes
33 - Charlotte Smith - Written Near a Port on a Dark Evening
34 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet LXX - On Being Cautioned.....
35 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet LXXI
36 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet LXXIX - To the Goddess of Botany
37 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet LXXX - To the Invisible Moon
38 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet LXXXII - to the Shade of Burns
39 - Charlotte Smith - Sonnet LXXXIII - The Sea View
40 - Charlotte Smith - Ode to Death