As Michael Field, Katharine Harris Bradley and Edith Cooper published twenty-seven tragedies, mostly verse dramas on historical or classical subjects. Only one of their plays was staged, and it received poor reviews. Their unique literary collaboration also produced eight collections of poetry, one of which pays tribute to
Sappho. Selections from their journal and letters appeared posthumously. Their Greek paganism influenced their earliest works, while their conversion to Roman Catholicism left its mark on later ones. Although Michael Field's work fell out of favour with most readers and critics early in 'her' career, this collaborative oeuvre has enjoyed a recent renaissance.
Milestones
27 October 1846 Katharine Harris Bradley (who was later known, along with Edith Cooper, as MF) was born at the address
10 Digbeth in
Birmingham, the much younger one of two girls in her family.
12 January 1862 Edith Cooper (who later shared the pen name MF with Katharine Harris Bradley) was born at
Kenilworth in
Warwickshire, at an address in the
High Street; she was the elder of two girls.
By 24 July 1875 Katharine Harris Bradley (later one of the writing partnership who made up MF) published a volume of poems,
The New Minnesinger, under the pseudonym 'Arran Leigh'.
By 18 June 1889 Writing as MF, Katharine Harris Bradley and Edith Cooper published
Long Ago, a collection of poems written around the surviving fragments of
Sappho.
10 November 1933 Selections from the journal of MF appeared posthumously as
Works and Days (title of the best-known work by the Greek poet
Hesiod). This book offered new insight into the work and life of Katharine Harris Bradley and Edith Cooper.
