Katherine Philips

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KP , who wrote during the mid seventeenth century, may herself have valued her public more highly than her private ones. But she won lasting importance as a poet of passionate female friendship and as realising new possibilites in translation and drama. She was an acceptable role-model and an active inspiration and enabler for women writers of several generations, before her rediscovery in the twentieth century as an inspiration for women loving women.
  • BirthName: Katherine Fowler
  • Married: Philips
  • Pseudonyms: Orinda
    This was often rendered as the Matchless Orinda.
    ; The Incomparable Mrs K. P.
Engraving of a bust of Katherine Philips by Michael Vander Gucht, frontispiece to her posthumous poems. The bust, in classical style, stands in an oval alcove on a pedestal engraved "ORINDA". Philips gazes into the distance, her hair in a loose bun with a single ringlet on each side; her low, draped neckline shows her breasts.
Black and white photo of a head-and-shoulders painting of Katherine Philips, looking directly at the viewer. She wears a necklace above a fashionably low neckline. Her hair looks shaved in front, but reaches in a bush of curls to her shoulder. Her name is written in italics below. This portrait, at Knole House, is the only likeness of her taken from life.

Milestones

1 January 1632

Katherine Fowler (later KP ) was born at Bucklersbury in the City of London, near the present Bank of England.
Philips, Katherine. “Introduction and Textual Notes”. The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda, Volume I: The Poems, edited by Patrick Thomas, Stump Cross Books, 1990, pp. 1-68.
1

10 February 1663

KP 's Pompey, a tragedy translated from Pierre Corneille , was performed at the Smock Alley Theatre (also known as the Theatre Royal, Dublin).
This purpose-built theatre, finer than London could offer at this date, had flourished before English civil war and recently re-opened in same building.
Philips, Katherine. “Introduction and Textual Notes”. The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda, Volume I: The Poems, edited by Patrick Thomas, Stump Cross Books, 1990, pp. 1-68.
16-18
Mulvihill, Maureen E. “A Feminist Link in the Old Boys’ Network: The Cosseting of Katherine Philips”. Curtain Calls, edited by Mary Anne Schofield and Cecilia Macheski, Ohio University Press, 1991, pp. 71-104.
90-1

Early April 1663

KP 's Pompey. A Tragœdy was published at Dublin by Samuel Dancer .
Philips, Katherine. “Introduction and Textual Notes”. The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda, Volume I: The Poems, edited by Patrick Thomas, Stump Cross Books, 1990, pp. 1-68.
17
Philips, Katherine. “Introduction and Textual Notes”. The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda, Volume III: The Translations, edited by Germaine Greer and R. Little, Stump Cross Books, 1993, p. ix - xxi.
3: xvi

10 June 1664

KP wrote her last poem: to Gilbert Sheldon , Archbishop of Canterbury.
Philips, Katherine. “Introduction and Textual Notes”. The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda, Volume I: The Poems, edited by Patrick Thomas, Stump Cross Books, 1990, pp. 1-68.
21
Philips, Katherine. Collected Works. Editors Thomas, Patrick et al., Stump Cross Books, 1990–1993, 3 vols.
1: 391-2

22 June 1664

KP died of smallpox in Fleet Street, London.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Philips, Katherine. “Introduction and Textual Notes”. The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda, Volume I: The Poems, edited by Patrick Thomas, Stump Cross Books, 1990, pp. 1-68.
21

21 January 1667

Richard Marriott resigned his rights in KP 's poems, preparing the way for Sir Charles Cotterell 's posthumous edition, Poems by the most deservedly Admired Mrs. Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda, which appeared the same year.
Philips, Katherine. “Introduction and Textual Notes”. The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda, Volume I: The Poems, edited by Patrick Thomas, Stump Cross Books, 1990, pp. 1-68.
22, 51-2

Biography

Birth and Family

1 January 1632

Katherine Fowler (later KP ) was born at Bucklersbury in the City of London, near the present Bank of England.
Philips, Katherine. “Introduction and Textual Notes”. The Collected Works of Katherine Philips, The Matchless Orinda, Volume I: The Poems, edited by Patrick Thomas, Stump Cross Books, 1990, pp. 1-68.
1

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