This book recovers and explores an important tradition of 19th century women's poetry from Felicia Hemans to Charlotte Mew. Angela Leighton not only discusses the work of neglected poets such as Augusta Webster and "Michael Field", but also charts the development of women's poetry from the sentimentalism of Hemans and the poet L.E.L. (Letitia Elizabeth Landon) to the various strategies of self displacement employed by the best of the Victorians, especially Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti. Combining biographical material with theoretical readings of the poems, Angela Leighton offers a re-interpretation not only of some original and important literature - too much of it by-passed or forgotten - but also of the very canon of Victorian poetry.