Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan, later Caroline Norton and, in the final months of her life, Lady Stirling-Maxwell, was born in London on 22 March 1808 and died in London on 15 June 1877. She was a poet, novelist, dramatist, political hostess, journalist, pamphleteer, and one of the most consequential campaigners for married women’s legal rights in nineteenth-century Britain. Her fame during her lifetime rested partly on…
“The married woman has no legal existence: her being is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection, and cover she performs everything.”
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Aphra Behn, born around 1640 and dead on 16 April 1689, occupies a singular position in English literary history: she was a successful Restoration playwright, a daring poet, an innovator in prose fiction, a political writer, and, most importantly for later generations, a woman who openly made writing her profession. Her precise origins remain uncertain, a fact that has invited both scholarly caution and romantic spec…
“Nor shall my pen be frighted from its way, by any reflection on the subject of my writing.”
Neighbourhood:
LGBTQ+ Poets, Love Poets, Political Poets, Restoration Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sensuality
