Author: HANDS (Elizabeth):
Title: The Death of Amnon. A Poem. With an Appendix: Containing Pastorals and other Poetical Pieces.
Description: Coventry, Printed for the Author, by N. Rollason. M,DCCLXXIX 1789. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. Tall 8vo, 219 x 135 mms., pp. [viii], 127 [128 blank], bound in early 19th century half calf, marbed boards, newish spine, without label; no list of subscribers, corners very worn. Elizabeth Hands (née Herbert, 1746–1815), sometimes known by her pen name "Daphne," worked as a servant in the household of the Huddesford family of Allesley, near Coventry, where she met and married William Hands (1746/7–1825), a blacksmith. She learned to read and write in the households in which she worked. She published some poems in newspaper, but the present work is her only book, and it was published by subscription. In her Oxford DNB) entry, Cynthia Dereli notes, "Richard Gough, reviewing the poems in the Gentleman's Magazine of June 1790, commended the title poem especially (p. 540). He noted the originality of its subject and urged readers to be tolerant of any 'unequal line' which might be found in the five blank verse cantos. The story on which this poem is based is to be found in 2 Samuel 13. Amnon, the son of David, falls in love with his sister Tamar, and with the help of a scheming friend, Jonadab, rapes her. The injury is avenged by her brother Absalom, who orders his servants to kill Amnon. While Elizabeth herself anticipated some opposition to a woman tackling the subject of a rape, she retells the story with sensitivity and control, and provides insights into character which are developed beyond the original material, through the use of dialogue and internal monologue. Hands successfully exploits the potential of blank verse to create a lively narrative which, following the model of earlier eighteenth-century writers, appropriately incorporates heroic similes and moralizing comments from the narrator. Thirty-nine miscellaneous poems complete the collection, providing a variety of poetic form: song, pastoral, ode, pastoral dialogue, epistle, elegy, and occasional poems. A number of common themes run through the collection, most prominently love and friendship. The occasional poems range in subject from the rampage of a mad cow through the village, to a visit of the king and queen to Kew."

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