Veronica Owen was born in 1936 of Welsh and German parentage and brought up in Kent. She spent a year in 1953 in Detmold, Schwarzemach and Munich in Germany and in 1953, created a personal anthology which she called Happiness.
Happiness is a deeply personal commonplace book: a carefully assembled collection of poems, biblical passages, prayers, prose and pictures through which she explored love, faith, beauty, belonging and the life she hoped to lead. Almost every word was transcribed in her own hand. Through her choices, arrangements and pairings of words and images, she created something approaching a spiritual and literary self-portrait.
The album was made in Germany in 1953–54, when the Poesiealbum – a decorated book of poems, quotations, pictures and words of wisdom – remained an important tradition among girls and young women. Although Happiness was overwhelmingly her own creation rather than a collection of contributions from friends, it belongs naturally to that cultural world: part commonplace book, part poetry album and part spiritual scrapbook.
Lovingly reproduced by NOP more than seventy years later, Happiness preserves the inner world of a young woman at a formative moment in her life—and in the history of post-war Europe. Now in her 91st year, she would like to transform her personal anthology into a book for the wider family and anyone interested in women’s lives, personal archives, poetry, faith and the quiet ways in which we create meaning from the words and images we love.
She. has 3 children and now lives in Suffolk, happily enjoying the countryside and music.
Happiness by Veronica Owen
Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment. (George Santayana, 1863–1952)
Created by Veronica Owen as a young woman living in Germany in the 1950s, Happiness is a remarkable personal collection of poetry, prayers, biblical passages, reflections and images exploring love, faith, beauty, nature and belonging.
Part poetry album, part spiritual scrapbook, it offers an intimate glimpse into a young woman’s inner life—and preserves a treasured family artefact for future generations.
“Beautiful (Xenia from London)… gorgeous (Billie from Liverpool)… absolutely stunning (Heather from Perth) … gorgeous (Vera from Kingston.” Many early readers have responded to Happiness with extraordinary warmth and have particularly valued the retention of the original handwriting, which gives the book an unusual intimacy and authenticity. Readers describe feeling privileged to encounter the material and see Happiness as a book to explore slowly – something to dip into, return to and discover over time.
“I love the original handwriting!” (Annie from Gerrard’s Cross)