Death overshadows all other themes in the single volume of collected poems by Caroline Clive, and, ironically, Clive's own death on 13 July 1873 was gruesome and tragic. Clive, who had been an invalid for several years, was writing in her boudoir when a spark set fire to her dress, books, and papers. She died the following morning, survived by her husband, the Reverend Archer Clive, and two children. The accident was shocking enough to merit news reports in both The Times (London) and The New York Times.

At the time of her death Clive's poetic achievements, favorably received though somewhat obscure, had been eclipsed by several novels. Writing as V, she steadily published her poems from 1840 to 1872, the year before her death. Her collected poems appeared in 1890. Although Clive's heavily moralistic and somewhat predictable style and tone make her poems unpalatable to most readers today, the poems are nevertheless...