Selected Poems
Anne Finch (1661-1720) is one of the earliest English women poets of importance, a friend of Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift and of Henry Purcell, who set one of her poems to music. A modest and retiring writer during her lifetime, constrained both by her own temperament and by her situation as a woman, she was later admired by Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold, but then again neglected. She is now being revalued as a poet whose skilful and perceptive writing sets her apart from the conventions within which she lived and worked. She celebrates the quiet pleasures of a happy marriage, country life and friendships, the qualities of a life lived, in her own words, with "Something less than joy, but more than full content".
This selection from the full range of her work includes explanatory notes and suggestions for further reading.
This selection from the full range of her work includes explanatory notes and suggestions for further reading.
About the author
Anne Finch was born in 1661 in Hampshire, the second daughter of Sir William Kingsmill. In 1683 she was appointed maid of honour to Mary of Modena, the wife of the future King James II. In 1684 she married Colonel Heneage Finch, a member of the royal household and later MP for Hythe. The couple lived at Westminster until 1688 when James II fled to the Continent. Because of their royal associations, the Finchs fell into disgrace and poverty, and retired for a time to a country estate. When they returned to London in 1712, Anne Finch began to be recognised in the literary circle of Pope and Swift. In 1713 a collected edition of her poems was published as "Miscellany Poems", written by a lady. She died in 1720.