The Works of Mary Leapor

Mary Leapor (1722-46) was the kitchen-maid daughter of a Northamptonshire gardener. Her poems are at times amusing, angry, and poignant. This volume presents all of her works, generously introduced and annotated, so that general readers may embrace this remarkable poet, whom many critics now believe to be one of the outstanding figures of eighteenth-century literature.

Richard Greene was born in 1961 in St. John's, Newfoundland. He took a BA in English from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1983. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1984, and was granted his doctorate in English in 1991. From 1990-1995, he taught at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Since 1995, he has taught at the University of Toronto, where he is an associate professor. Ann Parshall Messenger, born in 1933, grew up in the United States and was educated at Oberlin College, Cornell University and Somerville College, Oxford. After a brief period teaching at the University of British Columbia, she joined the faculty at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, where she was made Professor of English. She died in 1996.