This comprehensive anthology celebrates four centuries of women's poetry, covering over 100 poets from the English-speaking world. The poets range from queens and ladies of the court. Bloody Mary and her sister Elizabeth I, to a religious martyr, a spy, a young slave, a milkmaid, laborers, servants, activists, invalids, emigrees and pioneers, a daring actor, and the daughter of a Native American chief. Familiar names - Anne Bradstreet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the Bronte sisters and Emily Dickinson, and Christina Rossetti - appear alongside other writers from America, Australia, Canada. India, and New Zealand as well as the UK.