George Markham Tweddell: Collected Poems of George Markham Tweddell vols 1

We here present the complete and diverse poetical works of radical poet, author and printer - George Markham Tweddell (GMT) - 1823 - 1903.

GMT passed away over a century ago and there has never been a full collection of his poetical works until now. Tweddell was well published in his time and his poems appeared in Newspapers, periodicals, Journals, in the UK, Europe, Australia and the USA. Other appeared in anthologies, his own books or special collections of his poetry. His work appeared early on in the 1840's in the Chartist Newspaper The Northern Star and in many world wide masonic journals and local, regional and national newspapers. Others appeared in his own newspaper - The Stokesley News and Cleveland Reporter in the 1840's and in Tweddell's Yorkshire Miscellany and later in Tweddell's North of England Tractates. Special collections of his poems published in his own life time include 100 Masonic Poems.

In 2009 Paul Tweddell showed me (Trev Teasdel) some handwritten notebooks of GMT's poems, compiled towards the end of his life which indicated to us that he might have been trying to bring together the many poems he'd had published and some unpublished poems together for publication under different themes eg Sonnets of Flowers and Trees. Some of the critics, but not all by any means, had been less than kind to him. Looking at the range of poems and the number of poems Paul and I had collected, we realised that GMT was indeed not only a prolific poet but there was a wide range of styles, subject areas and a powerhouse hitherto unrealised. We decided to publish them on the internet and make them available for to read, enjoy and hopefully study. The topics range for local history to world politics and everything in between. For a fuller guide to GMT's poetry view the introduction I've written to them here also on this site http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/poets-view-of-george-markham-tweddell.html
or otherwise download the introduction on the pdf file below.
I wrote the introduction as a guide because Paul Tweddell was keen to see an academic reappraisal of GMT's work and the guide would give some valuable starting points for any such work.

After publishing the first two volumes (available in one PDF on here) Sarah Smith (another descendant of GMT) found a further collection of poems and sent them to Paul. These are now in a second pdf file on here.
There is the possibility of more work that may be lost but so far only one more poem has come to light - the poem about the Dunmow Flitch of Bacon Custom which appears on another post on here. Copies of the first two hard copy volumes are also in various Tees Valley reference libraries.

Slowly I'm making individual collections available on separate blogspots to reflect special collections of one main theme. So far Sonnets of Flowers and Trees - with illustrations is viewable separately here http://tweddellsonnet.blogspot.co.uk/ and the 100 masonic Poems will be next ( a link will be placed here when the site is finished). I plan to do one around themes related to the many poems about Cleveland and others at some stage. meanwhile all the poems we have are available and downloadable in there collections here.

PDF 1 (you can expand this file and read on line or download it free via Google Drive.
INTRODUCTION TO THE POEMS OF GEORGE MARKHAM TWEDDELL BY TREV TEASDEL AND A BIO OF GMT BY PAUL TWEDDELL.

To download the file - click the arrow which takes you to Google Drive

When it opens - click the black arrow screen left to download to your computer.or for some - Click File and then click download in the menu and the tick Save.

PDF file 2 - Acknowledgements and index to the first two volumes.

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PDF file 3 - Volume 1 and 2 of the collected Poems of George Markham Tweddell

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When it opens - click the black arrow screen left to download to your computer.or for some - Click File and then click download in the menu and the tick Save.

PDF file 4 - Volume Three of George Markham Tweddell (kindly supplied by Sarah Smith)

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When it opens - click the black arrow screen left to download to your computer.or for some - Click File and then click download in the menu and the tick Save.

In addition to these collected poems, I discovered another full poem not included and a couple of small commentary poems by Tweddell under his Peter Proletarius name in his book Shakespeare, His Time and Contemporaries.

First the short poems from the Shakespeare book - the first being a short piece to introduce the book -

"Since most that is known of the personal history of Shakespere is but trifling, let us carefully study the history of the period in which he lived." Peter Proletarius. 1862

"Know this, ye demons in the shape of men!
To torture those whom you can not convince
That our own dogmas can only be true
Is never pleasing in the sight of God ;
Whose essence being from pollution free,
delights not in the woes of human kind,
Like those who to themselves do arogate
The keeping of the oracles of God."
Peter Proletarius.

"Fortune her fickle blessings sometimes sheds
Upon a zany's head. 'Tis kindly done,
And saveth many men from feeling pains
their worthier bretheren oftimes must endure."

Peter Proletarius.

And this on is in another post on this blog - and from the John Andrews book on the Flitch of Bacon