Elizabeth Daryush is in the unusual position of being a poet laureate's daughter ("a grievous disadvantage for any poet to labour under," as Donald Davie put it). Her career spanned much of the twentieth century, and she has been praised to the skies by several eminent (male) poets and critics, but almost entirely ignored both by the reading public in general, the leaders of orthodox critical opinion, and the older and newer generations of feminist critics. As well as her original poetry, she wrote translations from classical Persian.