Swiss Letters and Alpine Poems has letters written home to family when F.R.H. was visiting in Switzerland, posthumously compiled and published by her oldest sister, Miriam Crane. Letters by the Late Frances Ridley Havergal was compiled and published by another sister, Maria. The letters and other items in Lilies and Shamrocks show Frances' long, deep interest to support the Irish Society, a group ministering to the Irish in their own language. One or two of these letters will have you shaking with laughter (no one could write on paper how to imitate the sound of a donkey in the Swiss Alps as well as Frances), but they are all so good to read, truly and deeply edifying and enriching. These letters bring you very near to Frances, as if she were sitting three feet away and speaking directly to you, and they so exceptionally well show her, and her Lord's work in her mind and heart and life. Let me say a personal statement. Over the fifteen years of work to prepare the Havergal edition for publication, I have long thought and occasionally said that if I were free from work and could just read, I would want to start with the volume of Letters compiled by Maria. They are so very good.-David L. Chalkley
Frances Ridley Havergal, the daughter of a Church of England minister, is well known for her great hymns of consecration including the famous Take My Life and Let It Be. She also wrote hymn melodies, religious tracts, and works for children.
In 1852/3 she studied in the Louisenschule, Dusseldorf, and at Oberkassel. Otherwise she led a quiet life, not enjoying consistent good health; she travelled, in particular to Switzerland. She supported the Church Missionary Society.
She died of peritonitis at Caswell Bay on the Gower Peninsula in Wales. Her sisters saw much of her work published posthumously. Havergal College, a private girls' school in Toronto, is named after her. The composer Havergal Brian adopted the name as a tribute to the Havergal family.
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