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= Octavia Walsh = From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Octavia Walsh (1676? – 1706) was an English poet and prose writer. Her book of poetry is in the Bodleian Library.

Life
Octavia Walsh was the last of eight children born to Joseph and Elizabeth Walsh of Abberley Hall. She was christened Octavia on New Year’s Day 1677. Her elder brother William Walsh was an established poet. William attended the University of Oxford but did not complete his studies. Records indicate that Octavia Walsh never left her county. It was her brother, William, who helped her gain access to other poets.

In 1706, Walsh died of smallpox at the age of 29. It appears her book and one poem in particular, The Princely Persian lead his warlike Host, were left unfinished due to her illness. She has a memorial tablet in Worcester Cathedral in England.

Career
Walsh wrote from her early teens until her death at age 29. Although she enjoyed writing, it was not a source of income for her. She did not need a source of income due to her family's aristocratic position. Walsh kept her writing a very private matter. Her family didn't learn of her writing until after her death when they found her work among her belongings. Her notebook of poetry was her legacy. It was bound in vellum, numbering 165 pages, and pages 33 through 121 were left blank. Walsh wrote from one end and then reversed the notebook and wrote from the other end—thus producing the blank pages. Her work was organized with religious works in the front and miscellaneous topics, such as the ribald To Urania, in the back. The book contains some 40 poems, and a few recipes along with a wash portrait of her. A separate work, a quarto manuscript, was a compilation of her works commonly thought to have been put together by her family after her death.

Publication
Her poetry was not published in her lifetime. Some of her works can be found in collections of poetry such as Divine and Moral subjects by Dr. Simon Patrick. Versions of two of her poems were published in 1721. Facilitated by her brother they appeared in a collection of poetry called The Grove. To Urania was the only work excluded from Walsh’s collection due to its ribald nature. At that time, it was denied because the cultural presumption was that women could not appreciate, much less write on such topics.

Reception History
Walsh was viewed as a virtuous and pious woman. Her writing proved this to be true as she wrote mostly about religious subjects. Her work was received well, and people thought so highly of her that when a work of hers that was bawdy or risqué was found it was quickly discounted. Family and close relatives spoke highly of her. A nephew, William Bromley, even writing a letter about her after her death saying she was "sensible without ostentation and beautiful without pride".