ABSTRACT
Competition, animosity and acts of exclusion were not limited to memorial inscriptions. They also shaped posthumous editions of Southey's actual writings. Robert Southey's brother, Henry, and eldest daughter, Edith May Warter, and her husband, the clergyman-scholar John Wood Warter, supported Bowles, as did Landor and Charles Wynn, the Poet Laureate's early patron. The feud was not confined to the domestic sphere. It also spilled over into a more public, cultural arena. The family disputes material and moral rights to possess and edit Southey's unpublished works and to transmit both them and his reputation to posterity began before his death. On his death in March 1843 Southey left a divided family and a number of uncompleted projects. In the months following his death, Southey's executors discussed with family members the possibility of posthumous editions, particularly of his unpublished works. The issue of what should be published and who should be responsible for editing it was complicated by the fraught family situation.
