Selected Poems

Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) was a prolific writer whose independence of outlook marks her out as a strikingly modern figure. Her poetry was admired by Wordsworth, and although her work was later neglected, she is now being recognised as a major poet whose Romantic sensibility was an expression of specifically female experience. This selection reveals Charlotte Smith as a moving, memorable poet, her responses to natural and emotional landscapes marked by vividly particular observation.
This selection provides an ideal introduction to the full range of Charlotte Smith's work. Her influential sonnets and her poems for children, extracts from her French Revolution poem 'The Emigrants' and the full text of her astonishing 'Beachy Head' are included here. Judith Willson's introduction and notes give the background to Smith's life and clarify the detail of her poems.