Isabella Whitney

01 January 1550 - 01 September 1600

IW is remarkable as the first woman—middle-class too, not noble—to publish a book of poems in English, which she did in 1567. She went on to issue another collection and several separate poems.

Milestones

Probably 1567

The printer Richard Jones issued what may possibly be a second printing of IW 's Copy of a letter to her unconstant Lover, the first book of poems identified as by an Englishwoman, as by Is. W.

Whitney, Isabella. The Copy of a letter, lately written in meeter, by a yonge Gentilwoman: to her unconstant Lover. Richard Jones.

A1r

20 October 1573

IW wrote her longest poem, The Manner of her Will, and what she left to London: and to all those in it: at her departing, printed in her A Sweet Nosgay, Or Pleasant Posye.

Whitney, Isabella. A Sweet Nosegay, or Pleasant Posy. Editor Students of Sara Jayne Steen, Montana State University.

53, 45

Biography

Birth

The date of IW 's birth is not known: it must have been some time around the mid sixteenth century. She seems to have been the eldest among her sisters, if not of the whole family. Her Wyll says she was bred

Whitney, Isabella. A Sweet Nosegay, or Pleasant Posy. Editor Students of Sara Jayne Steen, Montana State University.

in Smithfield. She probably means that London shaped her. She may well have been born at Coole Pilate near Nantwich in Cheshire, a hamlet where her family had a small estate.

Fehrenbach, Robert J. “Isabella Whitney, Sir Hugh Plat, Geoffrey Whitney, and <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘a’>Sister Eldershae</span&gt”;. English Language Notes, Vol.

, No. 1, pp. 7-11.

8-11

Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.

21: 142

Todd, Janet, editor. Dictionary of British Women Writers. Routledge.

714