H. H. Abbott was the pen name of English poetHarold Henry Abbott, who published two volumes of 'Georgian'-type verse in the 1920s, celebrating the lives of Essex rural folk and the Essex countryside, which he knew intimately. His poems have fallen into obscurity in the years since. Abbott was by profession a grammar school teacher and headmaster.
Life and career
The son of a butcher, Abbott was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford, then read English and French literature at the University of London. After teaching at the King's School, Gloucester, Falmouth Grammar, Royal Grammar Worcester, and Hymers College, Hull, he became headmaster of Beaminster Grammar and Hutton Grammar. For a time he was extramural lecturer at University College, Hull. He married Kathleen Joan Hart in 1929; they had three children. Abbott was one of the poets launched by Harold Monro and his publishing houseThe Poetry Bookshop, London. Ten poems in his first collection, Black & White, had previously appeared in Monro's periodical The Chapbook, and one, the title-poem, in a 1920 Harrap anthology. Black & White was well enough received for Chatto & Windus to accept his second collection, An Essex Harvest, and other poems. Some of these poems had appeared in the New Statesman and in a second Harrap anthology. His most typical pieces record the work and lives of Essex farming people, with some now unusual countryman's terms, or range descriptively "over the acres of our Essex land". There is much close observation of English nature and local topographical detail. There are also a few personal poems, and a small number in a more experimental style. Mostly conversational in tone, his poems are traditional in form and metre, ranging from "blank-verse bucolics" or rhyming couplets to shorter lyrics. His long discursive poem, 'An Essex Harvest', is a sort of English Georgics. Influences include Rupert Brooke, Robert Frost, Edward Thomas, and the Georgians generally. Neither volume was reprinted. His poems are not known to have appeared in anthologies since the 1920s.
The robin's song has come again: After the morning mist the clear fresh sun Shines on the tinkling stubble and the thatcher's men, Strawing and sprindling now that harvest's done. The robin's song has come again: A song to match the silver drops of dew, To tell me hips and haws are red, and when Berries are full of wine and black of hue. The robin's song has come again: High in the hedges hazel-clusters sway Milky and crisp, and in their moist and grassy den The naked, smooth-skinned mushrooms shrink from day.
'The Work of D. H. Lawrence', Humberside , vol. 1, no. 1, October 1922; essay
C. C. Abbott
The poet and academic C. C. Abbott , Professor of English at Durham University from 1932 and editor of Hopkins' correspondence, was H. H. Abbott's brother.
