The Poet as Fundraiser: Writing Catchpenny Verse at Times of Military Crisis in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract:This essay considers the evolution of nineteenth-century fundraising verse in the British press by tracing how three noncombatant poets—Sir Walter Scott, Tom Taylor, and Rudyard Kipling—raised money for suffering soldiers and their families in the aftermath of Waterloo (1815) and Alma (1854) and during the early stages of the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902). By investigating Romantic and Victorian poetic engagements with the contradictions between the conventions of representing war and the commercial enterprise of advertising charity funds, this essay sheds light on the complicated relationship between poetry, the press, and military crises during England's imperial conflicts.