John B. Tabb

John Banister TabbTemplate:Efn (March 22, 1845 – November 19, 1909) was an American poet, Roman Catholic priest, and professor of English.

Biography

Tabb was born in Amelia County, Virginia, on March 22, 1845. One of his brothers was William Barksdale Tabb, a lawyer and officer in the Confederate States Army.

A member of one of the state's oldest and wealthiest families, Tabb served on the blockade runner Robert E. Lee for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. In September 1863, the Robert E. Lee took Father John B. Bannon, former Catholic chaplain of the First Missouri Brigade, to Bermuda as part of a mission to fight Unionist recruitment in Ireland. Bannon spoke with Tabb, who became interested in Catholicism. On November 9, the Union Navy captured the vessel on its way to Texas. Tabb spent eight months in a Union prison camp, where he formed a lifelong friendship with poet Sidney Lanier. Tabb converted to Roman Catholicism in 1872, and taught literature at Saint Charles College in Ellicott City, Maryland, in 1878.

Tabb was ordained as a priest in 1884, after which he retained his academic position. Plagued by eye problems his whole life, he continued to teach though he lost his sight completely about a year before his death. He died at Saint Charles College on November 19, 1909. He was buried in Hollywood Cemetery.

Father Tabb (as he was commonly known) was widely published in popular and prestigious magazines of the day, including Harper's Monthly, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Cosmopolitan. His books of poetry include Poems (1894), Lyrics (1897), Later Lyrics (1902), and, posthumously, Later Poems (1910). He also wrote one prose work, Bone Rules (1897), an English grammar; only one of his sermons has survived, a sermon on the Assumption (August 15, 1894).

File:John B. Tabb in June 1895 Edition of The Bookman.png

John B. Tabb in June 1895 edition of The Bookman (New York City)

English poet Alice Meynell made A Selection from the Verses of John B. Tabb (1906). His biographer, Francis A. Litz, a former student of Tabb's, published previously uncollected poems and previously unpublished poems in Father Tabb: A Study of His Life and Works (1923); Litz also edited a collected edition, The Poetry of Father Tabb (1928). A literary biography of him was published by a Catholic sister who was also a well-known writer, Mary Paulina Finn, V. H. M., who published as M. S. Pine.

The Tabb Monument in Amelia County is dedicated to his memory.

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Portrait of Tabb from The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume XIII, 1906

Further reading

• Litz, Francis A. Father Tabb: A Study of His Life and Works. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1923).

External links

Works

• Template:Internet Archive author
• Template:Librivox author

Poetry

• Poems (1894) (Page Images)
• Lyrics (1897) (Page Images)
• Child Verse (1899) (Page Images)
• Later Lyrics (1902) (Page Images)
• The Rosary in Rhyme (1904) (Page Images)
• Quips and Quiddits (1907) (Page Images)
• A Selection from the Verses of John B. Tabb (1906/1910) (Page Images)
• Later Poems (1910) (Page Images)

Prose

• Bone Rules (1897) (Page Images)

Biographies

• "John Bannister Tabb: The Priest-Poet"
• "Father Tabb: His Life and Work"

Other

• Template:CathEncy
• "Poetry by John B. Tabb: A Centenary Selection"
• Brief review of John B. Tabb's first book of poetry in June 1895 edition of The Bookman (New York)