3 Female Poets of the Regency Era
Not Every 19th Century Wordsmith Was a Man
Keats. Wordsworth. Blake. All poets. All men. But not all there was to read in the early 1800’s. Women had their fair share of literary prowess as well. Here are several you may or may not have heard of.
Laetitia Elizabeth Landon
From childhood this woman was fascinated by poetry. She was first published at only eighteen years old, quite an accomplishment for then and for now. Laetitia was also a reviewer and writer for the Literary Gazette, which is a great success for a woman of her time. But alas, her personal life didn’t fare as well. She was found dead at the age of 36 by poison: prussic acid. Was it by her own hand or someone else’s? The controversy remains.
Ann Yearsley
Ann worked as a milkmaid, just like her mother, but on the side she loved to write. She was also a very passionate woman, shown by her activity against the slave trade in Bristol. To her name there are three books of poetry, a drama and a novel, which is pretty great for a self-taught reader.
Joanna Baillie
Joanna was a nineteenth-century Scottish poet and dramatist, who had a flair for gothic themes. And no wonder, for she was a descendant of the famed Sir William Wallace of Braveheart fame. Though she didn’t learn to read until the age of ten, that didn’t hinder her writing abilities. Once she caught ahold of words, she began by writing plays and is best known for her Plays on the Passions. She also penned many religious pamphlets and poems, one of which—A Sailor’s Song—is featured in Lost in Darkness when hero Graham Lambert dramatizes it with a series of sailor’s knots.
While I’m no Regency poet, I do have a new release out that you might be interested in. Lost in Darkness is an enchanting Regency-era gothic romance intertwined with inspiration from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Here’s a blurb:
Even if there be monsters, there is none so fierce as that which resides in man’s own heart.
Travel writer Amelia Balfour’s dream of touring Egypt is halted when she receives news of a revolutionary new surgery for her grotesquely disfigured brother. This could change everything, and it does. . .in the worst possible way.
Surgeon Graham Lambert has suspicions about the doctor he’s gone into practice with, but he can’t stop him from operating on Amelia’s brother. Will he be too late to prevent the man’s death? Or to reveal his true feelings for Amelia before she sails to Cairo?
Sound interesting? You can purchase your copy HERE or you can try your hand at winning a signed copy in the Rafflecopter Contest.
