The Collected Works of Ann Yearsley

This four-volume set is the first collected edition of Ann Yearsley's works. Previously unpublished poems are included alongside more familiar verses, whilst her play, Earl Goodwin, and novel, The Royal Captives, are here reprinted for the first time since the eighteenth century. Yearsley's letters are also collected together for the first time, including some which were formerly unknown. Recent years have seen a significant growth of interest in Ann Yearsley's work. Outspoken on the subject of the slave trade, she is often quoted in the context of the early abolitionist movement. As a ‘labouring-class poet' her writing also forms part of an under-represented area of Romanticism now growing in academic interest. The material in these volumes brings Yearsley to life as both a public and a private figure. Her literary career is examined along with her roles as business woman, mother and friend, with particular emphasis on her relationship with her patron, Hannah More. These newly transcribed, freshly annotated texts will greatly facilitate the further development of Yearsley scholarship as well as being of interest to social historians and those concerned with pre- and early Romantic culture. With a scholarly introduction at the start of each volume, this collection affords the first opportunity in more than two hundred years to read Yearsley's varied writings in their entirety and to re-appraise her within a contemporary context.