“Poems that establish Helen Gray Cone’s identity as a poet are found in her nineteenth-century poetry, the striking poems that have been overlooked
with virtually no inclusion
in twentieth-century century and contemporary anthologies.
These are the poems of her first two books — Oberon and Puck (1885) and The Ride to the Lady and Other Poems (1891).
”
Hidden in Plain Sight, Emerging Into the Light
Five years before Emily Dickinson’s poetry made its appearance in an 1890 Higginson-prefaced volume from a Bostonian publishing house [Roberts], New York publisher Cassell and Company released a book of poetry by twenty-six-year-old Helen Gray Cone [1859-1934] that received critical acclaim [Oberon and Puck, 1885]. In 1886, William Morton Payne of The Dial described the book as “a more ambitious kind . . . unusually full of promise.” [1]
Cone’s debut book of 1885 is a compilation of sixty-six highly lyrical, formal verse poems, many of which respond intertextually to works by authors, visual artists, and composers, such as Shakespeare, Dante, Boccaccio, Bastien-Lepage, and Bach, and often with a metaphysical poetic flair. Human condition themes explore ideology-and-effect, such as in the poems “The Conservative,” “The Liberal,” and “The Inheritance.” Her poems advocate women’s authority over their lives. Her sonnet “The Resolve” is in this collection.
Upon publication by Houghton Mifflin in 1891 of Cone’s second book, The Ride to the Lady and Other Poems, The Critic wrote, “The outlook for the future of poetry in this country grows distinctively brighter…”. [2]
In 1892, Payne [in The Dial] wrote that Cone had accomplished “advance in precision and in dramatic force.” [3] I delineate Cone’s oeuvre into three time periods, the Second Period being her Professional Poet Years of June 1876 to 1891, of which only these two of Cone’s poetry books — her nineteenth-century poetry— reside.
My intent is to bring Helen Gray Cone’s nineteenth-century poetry — and the poet herself — out of the shadows and into the view of Cone as a metrical pre-modernist, intertextual, female-empowerment poet of metaphysical finesse and literary merit.
Poems that establish Helen Gray Cone’s identity as a poet are found in her nineteenth-century poetry, the striking poems that have been overlooked with virtually no inclusion in twentieth-century century and contemporary anthologies.
These are the poems of her first two books — Oberon and Puck (1885) and The Ride to the Lady and Other Poems (1891).
“I delineate Cone’s oeuvre into three time periods:
First Period: Literary Beginnings Years — 1872 to June 1876 — ages 12/13 to 17
Second Period: Professional Poet Years — June 1876 to 1891 (of her first two books) — ages 17 to 32
Third Period: Professional Service, Social Consciousness & Commemorative Poetry Years — 1892 to 1934 — ages 32/33 to 74”
Highly-Regarded Poetry of the Nineteenth-Century
Just months after Dickinson’s book was published with the legendary introduction by Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Higginson invited Cone to New York’s Drawing Room Club meeting (to be held on February 26, 1891), including with his invitation apparent high praise of Cone’s “A Ride to the Lady.” In her reply letter to Higginson (of February 16, 1891), Cone thanked him for his praise of her poetry, writing: “You have bereft me of all words. Praise so precious, in a largeness so lavish, has simply taken my breath away. I thank you!” [4]
In 1901, Edmund Clarence Stedman in An American Anthology 1787-1900 wrote of Cone: “From the first she has displayed traits of a true poet, and of an artist too genuine to seek attention by devices.” [5]
Professional Poet
Upon her graduation in 1876 from Hunter College [originally a public women’s college, known as the Normal School or the Normal College of the City University of New York], Cone was a member of the first generation of women college graduates.
Lynn D. Gordon writes: “… scholars have viewed this first generation of women college students, educated between 1860 and 1890, as a serious and dedicated band of pioneers, eager to prove themselves intellectually.” [6]
For thirteen years — from her college graduation in 1876 to her return to Hunter as a literature and history instructor in 1889 [7] — Cone prioritized being a professional poet [8], resulting in her debut book and, undoubtedly, some poems that would appear in her second book. [9]
During that time, Cone achieved scholarly recognition: in 1883 at age 24, she added notes to three Shakespeare plays published by Riverside Edition of Houghton Mifflin; in 1887, at age 27 or 28, she co-authored with Jeanette Gilder one of the first anthologies of women writers, if not the first, published in the United States [10] — a two-volume biographical book entitled Pen-Portraits of Literary Women.
1890 — Cone Publishes Essay that Breaks Ground and the Glass Ceiling about Women Writers in America
In 1890, one year after embarking on her career in college teaching, The Century Magazine published her essay “Woman in American Literature.” [11] The following year, Cone’s essay was reprinted as a chapter in the book Women’s Work in America, edited by Annie Nathan Myer. [12]
One hundred-one years later, in 1992, Elizabeth Ammons called it a “groundbreaking literary historical essay.” [13] In 2009, Anne E. Boyd included the essay in Wielding the Pen: Writings on Authorship by American Women of the Nineteenth Century, referring to it as “the most comprehensive assessment in the nineteenth century of American women’s literary history.” [14] Statements from this landmark essay have been quoted by several scholars.
1899 — First Woman Professor at Hunter College — and English Department Chair
In 1899, Cone was the first woman to be appointed professor at Hunter College and, at the same time, she became the English department chair [15] — another recognition for a pioneer of women’s education in the United States. Cone’s career continued with further accomplishments, such as contributing notes for a fourth Shakespeare play [Globe School Book Company], publishing short fiction, musical score lyrics, and verses for children’s books by prominent illustrator Maud Humphrey [Maud’s maiden name was Humphrey and her married name was Bogart, and yes, her son was Humphrey Bogart].
Cone published an additional five books of poetry — three of which include poems from her first two books — with new poems that provide insights into her historical time as an adult. Cone’s poems were highly anthologized during her lifetime, seemingly lessening in anthology inclusion around the late 1940s to, in contemporary times, virtually no inclusion in anthologies of nineteenth-century poetry and women’s studies anthologies of women poets from the academic community. [16]
Prominent Poet, Scholar, and Professor in New York City
As a prominent poet, scholar, and professor in New York City, Cone’s life and career do not conform to Gilbert and Gubar’s paradigm of the nineteenth-century “madwoman in the attic.” Additionally, her expansive literary knowledge includes women writers. [17] Thus, while the male British and Anglo-American canon of poets undoubtedly would have been the primary, or only, focus of Cone’s classroom readings when she was a student, she refused to suffer from a lack of women writer precursors or contemporaries. Instead, in just a few years after her college graduation at age 17, she chose to compile female precursors and contemporaries, study their works, write and publish about them — simultaneously breaking ground and the glass ceiling.
Elizabeth Ammons writes:
Significantly, more than two decades before the MLA’s “ideal of masculine culture” began systematically to write women out of American literary history (or into such minor roles that the same result was achieved), Helen Gray Cone, in the still pre-professionalized early 1890s, sketched in “Woman in Literature” a rich tradition of women writers in the United States. [19]
Place Among the Poetry of Her Contemporaries
Additionally, Cone’s nineteenth-century poetry is distinct and accomplished in ways unlike the poetry of her contemporaries, such as Louise Imogene Guiney (1861-1920), Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919), and Margaret Deland (1857 - 1945). Concerning Cone’s place among her nineteenth-century contemporaries, Douglas Sladen believed two poets, one of which was Cone, ranked highest “among the very young poetesses.” [20]
In 1891, The Critic wrote:
The outlook for the future of poetry in this country grows distinctly brighter with the appearance of Miss Helen Gray Cone’s new volume of poems … containing some of the finest and most striking poetic work that has recently been done. These poems show a power of imagination and a strength of expression sufficient to entitle their author to the foremost place among her contemporaries and, at the same time, to a place in the ranks of the best of our older poets: they reveal a quality of poetic talent of the rarest kind, and betray, what modern poetry so seldom betrays—namely, genuine inspiration. [21]
A Virtuoso of Intertextuality
While early reviewers recognized Cone’s noteworthy talent, some seemed vexed by not easily and fully comprehending her poetics. In an otherwise review of praise, Payne admitted finding “puzzling” aspects about Cone’s poetry, describing it as having “some degree of obscurity” [22], a “slant” for which Dickinson later was lauded. [23]
In the twentieth century, Ezra Pound received accolades for obscurity and expansive knowledge that he crafted into intertextual poetry, which Cone had accomplished decades before — in 1885. Decades later, in 1921, T. S. Eliot will write: “It appears likely that poets in our civilization … must be difficult.” [24]
But in 1892, critic Payne wrote:
No poem, not even by a Mr. Browning, should be a puzzle to the intelligent reader, and Miss Cone’s poems are often a little puzzling, in details, at least, if not in general conception. But they contain also much that is clear-cut, as well as fine and impressive. [25]
In the nineteenth century, Cone used her intellect skillfully in crafting what today is referred to as intertextuality: her poetics of adroit lyrical weavings that directly and indirectly reference other artistic works, creating her distinctive well-educated lyrical voice. [26]
A Virtuoso in Sylistic Adaptation as Shown in Her Parody of the 1882 Meeting of Whitman and Wilde
Cone’s intertextual references and augmentation of literary, musical, and visual art demonstrate an energetic engagement with these works; she responds in persona-voices that speak to, speak with, or speak for several literary and historical characters and places.
Particularly skillful and witty is her parody of Whitman and Wilde upon their January 18, 1882 meeting at Whitman’s home in Camden. That her poem was first published in 1882 in The Century magazine [27] of this historical moment shows Cone’s awareness of her poetic milieu.
Joseph Andriano writes in Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, published in 1998:
Perhaps the cleverest parody of Whitman, besides E.B. White’s, is Helen Gray Cone’s verse dialogue, “Narcissus in Camden: A Classical Dialogue of the Year 1882”…The poem records, in stanzas alternating between Whitman-like free verse and Wilde-like Swinburnesque doggerel, an actual conversation they had about aestheticism. [28]
Here are just a few lines from the first two stanzas, with Whitman as Paumanokides and Wilde as Narcissus.
From “Narcissus in Camden” by Helen Gray Cone (first published in 1882):
Paumanokides.
Who may this be?
This young man clad unusually, with loose locks, languorous, glidingly toward me advancing,
Toward the ceiling of my chamber his orbic and expressive eye-balls uprolling,
As I have seen the green-necked wild-fowl the mallard in the thundering of the storm,
By the weedy shore of Paumanok my fish-shaped island.
Sit down, young man!
I do not know you, but I love you with burning intensity, …
Narcissus.
O clarion, from whose brazen throat
Strange sounds across the seas are blown,
Where England, girt as with a moat,
A strong sea-lion, sits alone!
A pilgrim from that white-cliffed shore,
What joy, large flower of Western land,
To seek thy democratic door,
With eager hand to clasp thy hand! [29]
A Virtuoso of the Literary Devices of Mystery and Clues and an Advocate for Education through Reading Poetry
Upon spending some time with Cone’s verse, a reader finds that Cone uses the strong literary devices of mystery and clues to engage the reader in literary and artistic exploration and, as with metaphysical poetics that allows for varied interpretations beyond the obvious, personal discovery. Incorporating some mystery with clues sprinkled to entice the reader to solve the mystery are important elements in literary poetry.
Cone’s poems of her first two volumes and in some succeeding collections invite the reader to explore by reading closely the texts with which her poems engage, then to research aspects related to but not included in those texts. In this way, Cone, the scholar-poet, advocates for research and the furthering of one’s education into the literary, visual, and musical arts.
Cone’s nineteenth-century poetics is metrical pre-modernist; Robert Frost, a metrical modernist poet, will have his first book published twenty-eight years after Cone’s first book.
Cone Challenged Stereotypical Thinking Among Her Male Peers
Though rare, the unfavorable criticism of Cone’s nineteenth-century verse was scrutiny through a myopic lens leading to insular judgment.
As Cheryl Walker writes: “…the poems by women most typically praised were those that dealt with themes deemed appropriate to feminine life … .” [30]
Gilbert and Gubar write that a woman author’s “battle … is not against her (male) precursor’s reading of the world but against his reading of her.” [31]
Critics expected women authors to write “womanly” while simultaneously criticizing them for an inherent lack of true ability or innovation. Thus, if invention appeared in a woman’s writing, such as with Cone and Dickinson, it was seen as “puzzling.” A forthright scholar, Cone saw this paradox toward women writers by critics, challenging such stereotypical thinking among her male peers.
In “Woman in American Literature,” Cone wrote:
In criticism a classification based upon sex is necessarily misleading and inexact …The dearest foe of the woman artist in the past has been the suave and chivalrous critic, who, judging all “female writers” by a special standard, has easily bestowed the unearned wreath. [32]
Cone’s Essay Sets Parameters for Women’s Voices As Literary Voices
Cone’s essay was published one month before the November 1890 release of Dickinson’s book; thus, Dickinson is not included in the essay. At that time through literary connections, Cone might have been aware of the poet but not of her poetry. [33]
“...Cone’s essay sets new parameters — those by which poetry such as Cone’s own could be understood on equal literary and educational backgrounds of male writers while also having a unique voice that speaks against sexism and inequality.
My reading is that Cone’s “Woman in American Literature” essay was a manifesto for women writers to find their own distinct and individual voices, which,
though unstated, clearly included herself. ”
Still, with the essay, Cone was paving the way for the recognition of Dickinson’s caliber of poetry, which will appear one month later.
Further, Cone’s essay sets new parameters — those by which poetry such as Cone’s own could be understood on equal literary and educational backgrounds of male writers while also having a unique voice that speaks against sexism and inequality.
My reading is that Cone’s essay was a manifesto for women writers to find their own distinct and individual voices, which, though unstated, clearly included herself.
Her essay asks critics and readers to judge a woman’s writing for its literary merit and not based on the sex of the writer or if it executed or not the expected “womanly verse” — verse that results from what Cone describes as the belief that even some women writers might have had, what Cone calls “a lingering feudal idea that she [a woman writer] could hold literary territory only on condition of stout pen service in the cause of the domestic virtues and pudding.” [34]
Elizabeth Ammons writes, “…it was … — the woman writer on an equal footing with men — that Cone, thoroughly a woman of the turn of the century, wished to protect.” [35]
“What has been overlooked is that, like her “Woman in American Literature” essay, Cone’s nineteenth-century poetry
speaks to female equality, agency, subjectivity, empowerment, and resolve —
and to “sing” other than what she is told to “sing” —
as is made clear with the last-line epiphany of her poem “The Resolve”:
“I will not sing what thou wouldst have me sing!” ”
Cone’s Poetry, Like Her Essay, Speaks to Female Equality, Agency, Subjectivity, Empowerment, and Resolve
Unfortunately, Cone’s highly regarded essay has been unrecognized as one that includes Cone herself as a poet of literary merit.
What has been overlooked is that, like her “Woman in American Literature” essay, Cone’s nineteenth-century poetry speaks to female equality, agency, subjectivity, empowerment, and resolve — and to “sing” other than what she is told to “sing” — as is made clear with the last-line epiphany of her poem “The Resolve”: “I will not sing what thou wouldst have me sing!” [36]
“The Resolve” by Helen Gray Cone. Published in Oberon and Puck, 1885:
“The Resolve
Thou intimate, malign, benumbing power
I cannot name, since names that men have made
For shapes of evil shine beside thy shade,
Who from the seat of mine own soul dost lower, —
Darkness itself, that doth the light devour,
I feel thine urgency upon me laid
To voice despair! Thou shalt not be obeyed;
Thou art my master only for thine hour!
As some sad-eyed, wan woman that is slave
To the swart Moor, being bid her lute to bring,
Since song of her strange land her lord doth crave,
With lip a-tremble dares the scourge’s sting,
Refusing, — thy brute so far I brave:
I will not sing what thou wouldst have me sing!”
In this sonnet, the octet could be seen as Cone rewriting the outcome of a woman’s subjugation in the play Othello to empower the unnamed woman to not play the song, to not obey the man. [Thus, within the context of the play, for Desdemona to not die, smothered by her husband.]
The sestet can be read as the author of this version of events, the poet Helen Gray Cone, authoring in her voice the woman’s act of resolve that results in the authority of her own “song” — her poetry and her life.
Cone’s Accomplished, Inventive Nineteenth-Century Poetry Merits Notice by the Academic Community
Though accomplished and inventive, and in my analysis remarkable, Cone’s nineteenth-century poetry of her first two books is largely unnoticed by the contemporary academic community.
Ironically, the poet whose poetry was making women-empowerment statements beginning in 1885 has been excluded from anthologies of nineteenth-century women poets and women’s studies of nineteenth-century poets — even from some that have quoted words from this very poet’s groundbreaking essay supporting women writers.
I don’t think this exclusion of Cone’s poetry and Cone-as-poet is intentional.
I want to note here that Hunter College has always recognized their “Poet-Professor” as Helen Gray Cone was called [37] and sometimes also referred to as the Hunter College “laureate poet” [38], establishing an English Department fellowship fund in her name upon her retirement in 1926 [39], a fascinating multi-page tribute to her in The Hunter Bulletin of March 8, 1934 [her birthday of the year she died in January], and an American ambulance for the Italian front during the Great War (World War I) named for her with funds raised by Hunter College [40], which was part of the American Poet’s Committee efforts for ambulances for Italy. [41]
E. Adelaide Hahn of the Hunter College Traditions Committee wrote in 1934: “Helen Gray Cone herself has always been one of our most precious traditions.” [42]
Hidden in Plain Sight
Simply stated, Cone and her nineteenth-century poetry is hidden in plain sight.
Today, though not widely, some scholars recognize Cone as a poet and a scholar. For example, in 2009 Anne Boyd wrote: “Helen Gray Cone was a prolific poet and literary scholar.” [43] Other contemporary scholars, such as Elizabeth Ammons (in 1992), Susan S. Williams (in 2006), and Kay Halasek (in 2013) have recognized Cone’s scholarly and teaching work sometimes with a mention that Cone was a poet.
I suggest that the exclusion of the accomplished Cone and her poetry from contemporary academic anthologies of American poetry and from women’s studies has been due to four practical factors:
One: Until recently, finding the poetry of her first two books and information about Cone was not an easy task.
Upon discovering her first two books in 1997/1998 as a Ph.D. student, I had to be in the stacks, use the card catalog and interlibrary loan. Jeffrey Graf, Reference Associate at the Herman B. Wells Library, Indiana University, helped with his access to some research avenues that I did not have, and he showed me how to use the in-library resource Lexus Nexus. My experience was that internet research for anyone other than research librarians was virtually unknown at that time.
In 1998, as a Ph.D. student and on “my own dime,” I traveled to Hunter College to learn about Cone in the Archives. There, Professor Julio Hernandez-Delgado, Hunter College Libraries Archives and Special Collections, offered wonderful information and great help.
Upon Cone’s poetry evidently entering the public domain, reprints of her books appeared. Her poetry can be easily found on websites, blog posts, YouTube, Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg and more with an internet search. Wikipedia has a page for Cone — none of these online sources existed when I began researching her.
Two: Cone was a scholar-poet writing innovatively and decades before her time — and without a literary champion to write an introduction about the quality and inventiveness of her first two books,
such as Higginson for Dickinson and Emerson for Whitman, that would resonate with readership.
Three: The remarkable nineteenth-century poems of her first two books were shoved into the shadows by her later poetry of the early twentieth century
that responded to several overlapping cultural and socio-political ages, including The Progressive Era, The Great War, and what I call the Gothic Collegiate Mystique — an entire age of creating the college and alma mater experience. [44]
Four: As the twentieth century progressed, the very few Helen Gray Cone poems chosen to be anthologized are more accessible and respond to the historical times.
These poems have been used to represent the extent of Helen Gray Cone’s poetic ability. However, they do not.
In conclusion, I restate: Poems that establish Cone’s identity as a poet are found in her nineteenth-century poetry, the striking poems that have been overlooked with virtually no inclusion in twentieth-century and contemporary anthologies.
These are the poems of her first two books — Oberon and Puck (1885) and The Ride to the Lady and Other Poems (1891).
Time Periods of Cone’s Oeuvre
I delineate Cone’s oeuvre as organized into three time periods:
First Period: Literary Beginnings Years — 1872 to June 1876 — ages 12/13 to 17
Second Period: Professional Poet Years — June 1876 to 1891 (of her first two books) — ages 17 to 32
Third Period: Professional Service, Social Consciousness & Commemorative
Poetry Years — 1892 to 1934 — ages 32/33 to 74
Discover the Poetry of Helen Gray Cone with Me
I invite you to visit my website to discover scholar-poet Helen Gray Cone and her nineteenth-century poetry and to continue this conversation with me.
This introductory essay to my analysis of Helen Gray Cone’s poetry serves as an overview of shorter essays I will be publishing on related topics presented here.
Dr. Mary Dezember with some materials of her own private collection of research about and books by nineteenth-century poet Helen Gray Cone.
Research materials about and by Helen Gray Cone. Private Collection of Mary Dezember.
Acknowledgments:
I wish to offer my most sincere gratitude to two researchers who, when I began my research in 1997/1998 and over several years, gave generously of their time and help on my continuous but often-interrupted quest to learn about Helen Gray Cone: Jeffrey Graf, Reference Associate at the Herman B. Wells Library, Indiana University and Professor Julio Hernandez-Delgado, Hunter College Libraries Archives and Special Collections.
I wish to thank New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology for my sabbatical leave during the fall semester of 2016 so that I could continue my research of Helen Gray Cone and her poetry.
A version of this essay was first presented on October 10, 2024 at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Convention, American Nineteenth-Century Literature Panel [panel time: 1:45 to 3:30 pm PT] as “The ‘Other’ American Woman Poet of the Nineteenth Century.”
Notes:
Helen Gray Cone’s poems “The Resolve” and “Narcissus in Camden” are found in her 1885 debut book of poetry Oberon and Puck, and is in the public domain. You can find her book on Project Gutenberg, here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73629
Photo credits: Mary Dezember.
Banner photo and photo of Dr. Mary Dezember with research materials show materials from Dr. Dezember’s personal collection.
Essay Notes:
[1] Payne, 1886, p. 252.
[2] The Critic, 1891, p. 243.
[3] Payne, 1892, p. 357.
[4] Cone, autographed letter signed to Thomas Wentworth Higginson. February 16, 1891.
[5] Stedman, 1901, p. 786.
[6] Gordon, 1990, p. 30.
[7] Hernandez-Delgado and Sorokurs, 2014, p. 4.
[8] Hunter, Anna M., “Hunter Bulletin,” 1934, p. 5.
[9] Some of Cone’s poems were published in journals before publication in a book collection, so she likely wrote poems for her 1891 book before she began teaching at Hunter in 1889. If my research shows poems published in journals before 1891 that appear in her second book, I will update this wording and note with that information.
[10] Upon further research, I will update this information.
[11] Cone, “Woman in American Literature,” The Century [Illustrated Monthly] Magazine, 1890.
[12] Myer, Annie Nathan. Women’s Work in America.1891.
[13] Ammons, Conflicting Stories, 1992, p. 12.
[14] Boyd, Wielding, 2009, p. 343.
[15] Hernandez-Delgado and Sorokurs, 2014, p. 4.
[16] From my research to date, I have not found any of Helen Gray Cone’s poetry included in nineteenth-century poetry anthologies or women’s studies anthologies. Her parody poem of the meeting of Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde is included in the 1981 publication The Brand-X Anthology of Poetry: A Parody Anthology, William Zaranka, Editor, Burnt Norton Edition, Cambridge, Watertown: Apple-wood Books, Inc., 1981, p. 211-214. I will be continuing my research and will my update my findings if new information comes to light.
[17] Her expansive literary knowledge includes women writers, about whom she wrote the 1890 aforementioned groundbreaking essay and had, in 1883, co-edited the biographical sketches of literary women.
[18] My understanding is that, in the nineteenth century at a normal college, high school and college education were simultaneous, preparing students to become teachers after graduation. I plan to address the topic of nineteenth-century women’s education in subsequent essays. Regardless, Cone’s graduation is a college graduation from Hunter College.
[19] Ammons, Conflicting Stories, 1992, p. 17.
[20] Sladen, Younger American Poets, 1830-1890, 1891, p. xlix.
[21] The Critic, 1891, p. 243.
[22] Payne, 1892, p. 357.
[23] I am using “slant” here in reference to Dickinson’s poem “Tell all the truth but tell it slant—”.
[24] Elliot quoted by Rachel Wetzsteon in poets.org of the Academy of American Poets.
[25] Payne, 1892, p. 357.
[26] Payne wrote of her first book: “Decidedly the best pieces of the collection are those in which the echo of other men’s genius is thus blended with the voice of the new singer.” (Payne, 1886, p. 252.) While Payne’s statement gives credit to her use of adroit intertextuality, I think it fails to recognize the scope of Cone’s talent.
[27] Cone, “Narcissus in Camden,” Century, 1882, p. 157-159.
[28] Andriano, Joseph. “Parodies.” Whitman: An Encyclopedia, 1998, p. 506. Andriano cites the poem found in The Brand-X Anthology of Poetry: A Parody Anthology, William Zaranka, Editor, Burnt Norton Edition, Cambridge, Watertown: Apple-wood Books, Inc., 1981, p. 211-214.
[29] Cone, Helen Gray. “Narcissus in Camden,” Century, 1882 and Oberon and Puck, 1885, p. 110-117.
[30] Walker, Anthology, 1992, p. xxiv.
[31] Gilbert and Gubar, Madwoman in the Attic, 1979, p. 49.
[32] Cone, “Woman in American Literature,” Century, 1890, p. 921.
[33] Cone knew Higginson; she knew many of her contemporaries in literature. But, unless someone specifically shared a pre-published poem of Dickinson’s with Cone, it seems unlikely that she would have been aware of her poetry. However, Dickinson as a poet might have come up in conversation. At this time, this is my speculation. At this point in my research, I have not yet found evidence of Cone knowing of Dickinson or her poetry.
[34] Cone, “Woman,” 1890, p. 923. Cone explains “pudding” as the idea that Higginson stated that “‘…it seemed to be held necessary for American to work their passage into literature by first compiling a cookery book’.” (Higginson qtd. in “Woman,” p. 923.)
[35] Ammons, Conflicting Stories, 1992, p. 12.
[36] Cone, “The Resolve,” Oberon and Puck, 1885, p. 62.
[37] Hahn, E. Adelaide. “Our Poet-Professor,” Hunter Bulletin, 1934, p. 4.
[38] Williams, Blanche Colton. “Helen Gray Cone, Poet,” Hunter Bulletin, 1934, p. 3.
[39] Hernandez-Delgado and Sorokurs, 2014, p. 4.
[40] Cone, “For Italy, Hunter Bulletin, 1934, p. 6.
[41] New York Times, “War Fund”, 1917, p. 12.
[42] Hahn, E. Adelaide. “Helen Gray Cone and the Traditions Committee,” Hunter Bulletin, p. 5.
[43] Boyd, Anne. Wielding, 2009, p. 343.
[44] Based on the era of the Gothic Collegiate Architecture in America and of what Henry Seidel Canby referred to as “The Gothic Age of the American College” in his book Alma Mater: The Gothic Age of the American College, 1936, I see a phenomenon, based on my research of Helen Gray Cone and also of events during that time (~1890 to 1920, according to Canby) that I call the Gothic Collegiate Mystique. I will address this in an upcoming essay.
Works Cited:
Ammons, Elizabeth. Conflicting Stories: American Women Writers at the Turn into the Twentieth Century. (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Andriano, Joseph. “Parodies,” Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. Donald D. Cummings and J.R. LeMaster, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998).
“Biographical Sketch,” The Helen Gray Cone Collection, 1859-1934, Finding Aid, Archives and Special Collections, Hunter College Libraries. https://library.hunter.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/documents/archives/finding_aids/Helen_Gray_Cone_1859_1934.pdf
Boyd, Anne E., Ed. Wielding the Pen: Writings on Authorship by American Women of the Nineteenth Century. (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2009.)
The Critic. “Literature: Miss Cone’s ‘The Ride to the Lady,’ etc.*,” November 7, 1891, p 243. Source, Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/sim_critic_1891-11-07_16_507/page/n1/mode/2up
Also can be found in The Critic: A Weekly Review of Literature and the Arts, Volume XVI (New Series) July-December 189. New York: The Critic Company, 1891.
Cone, Helen Gray. “Helen Gray Cone autograph letter signed to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, [New York], 16 February 1891,” MS P.91.37, 2-72 (Box 1, Folder 25). Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections. https://archives.bpl.org/repositories/2/digital_objects/5079
Cone, Helen Gray. “Narcissus in Camden: A Classical Dialogue of the Year 1882,” The Century illustrated monthly magazine, v. 25, No. 1, (New Series Vol. III) November 1882, pp. 157-159). Found in HathiTrust: The Century illustrated monthly magazine v.25 1882-1883 Nov-Apr https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015030319530&seq=18
Cone, Helen Gray. “Narcissus in Camden: A Classical Dialogue of the Year 1882,” Oberon and Puck: Verses Grave and Gay. (New York: Cassell & Company, 1885), p. 110-117.
Cone, Helen Gray. “The Resolve,” Oberon and Puck: Verses Grave and Gay. (New York: Cassell & Company, 1885), p. 62.
Cone, Helen Gray. “Woman in American Literature,” The Century [Illustrated Monthly] Magazine, October 1890, Vol. XL., pp. 921 - 930.
https://archive.org/details/sim_century-illustrated-monthly-magazine_1890_40_index
https://archive.org/details/sim_century-illustrated-monthly-magazine_1890-10_40_6/page/920/mode/2up
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Gubar, Susan. The Mad Woman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979 and 1984).
Gordon, Lynn D. Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990).
Hahn, E. Adelaide. “Helen Gray Cone and the Traditions Committee,” Hunter Bulletin. (Hunter College: March 8, 1934, p. 5).
Hahn, E. Adelaide, Editor of Special Issue, E. Adelaide Hahn, 1915.“Our Poet- Professor,” Hunter Bulletin. (Hunter College: March 8, 1934, p. 4)
Halasek, Kay. “Long I Followed Happy Guides”: Activism, Advocacy, and English Studies,” Women and Rhetoric Between the Wars, Ed. Ann George, M. Elizabeth Weiser, and Janet Zepernick. (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013, pp. 240-259.)
Hernandez-Delgado, Julio L. Archivist, with Assistant Julie Sorokurs. “Biographical Sketch,” The Helen Gray Cone Collection 1859-1934 Finding Aid. (Hunter College Libraries: Archives and Special Collections, February 2014.) https://library.hunter.cuny.edu/sites/default/files/documents/archives/finding_aids/Helen_Gray_Cone_1859_1934.pdf
Hunter, Anna M. “How Helen Gray Cone Became a Teacher in Hunter College,” Hunter Bulletin, (Hunter College: Thursday, March 8, 1934, p. 5).
Hunter Bulletin, “For Italy by Helen Gray Cone,” inset poem with note: “Written on the Occasion of the Presentation of the Helen Gray Cone Ambulance for the Italian Front,” (Hunter College: March 8, 1934, p. 6)
Myer, Annie Nathan. Women’s Work in America. (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1891). https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001055266
The New York Times. “War Fund is $164,369. American Poets’ Committee Announces More Ambulances for Italy.” December 17, 1917, p. 12. https://www.nytimes.com/1917/12/17/archives/war-fund-is-164369-american-poets-committee-announces-more.html
Payne, William Morton. (1886) Payne, William Morton. (1886) “Recent Poetry,” The Dial: A Monthly Journal of Current Literature, May 1885 to April 1886, Vol. VI, No. 69, January 1886, Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Company, Publishers, 1886, pp. 246-253. Source, Hathitrust: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015030979531&seq=268
Payne, William Morton. (1891) The Dial: A Monthly Journal of Current Literature, Vol.XII, May 1891 to April 1892. New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation, 1968.
Simonds, Ph.D., William Edward. A Student’s History of American Literature, Boston, New York, Chicago: Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1909. Source, Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/studentshistoryo00sim/page/330/mode/2up
Sladen, Douglas, B.A. Oxon., Ed. Younger American Poets, 1830-1890. With an appendix of Younger Canadian Poets, edited by Goodridge Bliss Roberts. New York: The Cassell Publishing Company, 1891. Source, Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/youngamerican00sladrich/page/n51/mode/2up
Stedman, Edmund Clarence. An American Anthology 1787-1900: Selections Illustrating the Editor’s Critical Review of American Poetry In the Nineteenth Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1901. Source, Hathitrust: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001476591&seq=858
Walker, Cheryl, Ed.. “Introduction,” American Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century: An Anthology. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1992).
Wetzsteon, Rachel. “Some Reflections on Eliot’s ‘Reflections on Vers Libre’: On Verse and Free Verse, poets.org of the American Academy of Poets (posted February 21, 2005).
https://poets.org/text/some-reflections-eliots-reflections-vers-libre-verse-and-free-verse#:~:text=T.%20S.,would%20appear%20a%20year%20later.
Williams, Blanche Colton. “Helen Gray Cone, Poet,” The Alumnae News, (Associate Alumnae of Hunter College of the City of New York, New Rochelle, N.Y. March 1934, Vol. XXXIX, No. 3).
Williams, Susan S. Reclaiming Authorship: Literary Women in America, 1850-1900. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).