American and British 18th- and 19th-century Literature

The Poetess Archive constitutes a resource for studying the literary history of popular British and American poetry. Much of it composed during what can be called the “bull market” of poetry's popularity(1), late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century popular poetry was often written in what came to be designated an "effeminate" style, whether written by men or women. Writings in the poetess tradition were disseminated in myriad collections: miscellanies, beauties, literary annuals, gift books. They achieved a place of prominence in virtually every middle-class household.