Victorian Iconoclast: Eliza Cook (1812–1889)

At the fin de siècle, Eliza Cook was only vaguely remembered as a working-class poet of yesteryear. Yet from the late 1830s to the 1860s, she was one of the most popular poets in Great Britain and America. This chapter charts Cook’s rise to fame, demonstrating how her working-class roots, outspoken feminism, and masculine attire established her as an iconoclastic celebrity. It then traces the transatlantic development of Cook’s career, showing how the American press appropriated her poetry and her persona. It also explores how changing conceptions of women’s celebrity at mid-century led to Cook’s marginalization within the emerging canon of ‘great’ women authors.