Women Poets and Anonymity in the Romantic Era

I

PICTURE, IF YOU WILL, the woman poet of the romantic era, toiling away in obscurity, fearful of putting her name before the public—of being seen and recognized as a writer, publishing book after book anonymously or under the veil of "by a lady," or using some other subterfuge to keep her true identity secret. This woman poet, this familiar portrait, is a fiction—as much a myth, it seems, as the notion of poetry coming as spontaneously and "as naturally as the Leaves to a tree." ¹

The evidence shows, in fact, that during the period 1770-1835, women rarely published books of verse anonymously. With surprisingly few exceptions, women who published poetry books proudly placed their real names on the title page from the very outset of their careers. Such was the case with Lucy Aikin, Mathilda Betham, Felicia Hemans, Mary Howitt, Mary Leadbeater, Mary Russell Mitford, Hannah More, Amelia Opie, Sydney Owenson, Mary Robinson, Anna Seward, Charlotte Smith, Agnes Strickland, Ann Yearsley, and many others. When a woman did bring out a book of poetry anonymously, it was often her first book, and her name appeared quickly on the title pages of subsequent editions and later volumes. This first book was a trial balloon, so to speak, a testing of the waters. Rose Lawrence's The Last Autumn at a Favourite Residence: With Other Poems (1828) is illustrative. When the book's second edition came out the following year, she acknowledged her authorship on the title page.

Sometimes aristocratic, wealthy, or particularly well-connected women poets did not print their names on the title page or anywhere else in their books. They often privately printed small editions to be distributed primarily to family and friends. Gentry were loath to have their names associated with commercial publication for fear of diminishing their social status by appearing to be "in trade." Even though the title page of such works might not identify the poet, the book was hardly anonymous to its recipients or to other contemporaries. Mary Tighe's Psyche; or, the Legend of Love is a perfect example of this phenomenon. The first edition, published in 1805, numbered only fifty copies. Tighe's name is printed nowhere in the book; but she signed the copy now in the British Library, just as she must have identified herself to the other forty-nine recipients of her work with a signature, an accompanying note, letter, personal inscription or more intimate, in-person presentation. Psyche was typical in that its second edition, the first commercial printing, which in this case was posthumous, bore the poet's name. ² Other well-to-do poets, such as Susanna Blamire, Carolina, Baroness Nairne, and Catherine Maria Fanshawe, circulated their works privately in manuscript during their lifetimes but kept them unpublished. After their deaths, their poetry appeared in published volumes bearing their names. ³

Laboring-class women poets, on the other hand, used their real names from the beginning as a way to help insure the sale of their verse. In fact, women of this class, or the editors of their poetry, often added identifying information. Thus, we find listed on title pages "Ann Yearsley, a Milkwoman of Bristol," "Janet Little, the Scotch Milkmaid," and "Christian Milne, Wife of a Journeyman Ship-carpenter, in Footdee, Aberdeen," as well as "Ann Candler, a Suffolk Cottager." Candler's book, Poetical Attempts (1803), also includes a section entitled "A Short Narrative of her Life." Volumes such as these were often, in part, charitable solicitations, and identifying the poet put a concrete face on abstract human need. ⁴ Other laboring-class poets, such as Elizabeth Hands and Isabel Pagan, rejected this model and simply listed their names without elaboration. I am unaware of any instance of a laboring-class woman poet whose name did not appear on the title page of her book.

In fact, the identity of very few romantic-era women authors of poetry...