The work of women poets is often overlooked in anthologies, and collections of love poetry are no exception. This delightful and highly original collection shows that on the subject of romantic and sexual love women can be just as eloquent as men - if not more so.


Here, the bitter and the sweet mingle as women from the last five hundred years write about jealousy, fickleness, exhilaration, the pain of parting and the transience of love. Revealed is poetry which has been largely invisible since the fifteenth century; surprises from women better known for other things, like Elizabeth I and E. Nesbit; classics old and new from names including Margaret Atwood, Wendy Cope, Anne Sexton, Carol Ann Duffy, Erica Jong, Amy Lowell, Stevie Smith, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton, Adrienne Rich, Katherine Mansfield, George Eliot and Dorothy Parker.