Portraits and Other Poems

Augusta Webster was very widely praised in her own time―Christina Rossetti thought her “by far the most formidable” woman poet. Her work has again come into favour, so much so that Isobel Armstrong and her co-editors of the influential anthology, Nineteenth-Century Women Poets, declare that “there can be no doubt that Augusta Webster ranks as one of the great Victorian poets.” This collection is the first edition of Webster’s poems since 1895. It is a selection of her best work, emphasizing her powerful dramatic monologues and including a substantial number of her lyrics. With an introduction and background documents that highlight the distinctiveness of her work, this edition will help to re-establish Augusta Webster as a major figure of nineteenth-century English literature.