Lyrical tales

Mary Robinson, née Darby, was an English celebrity known for her acting and writings. She published six books of poetry, eight novels, two socio-political texts, and three dramas, of which only two have been performed. Though she was a prolific writer, most do not know of her and if they do it is usually not for her writing. For a presentation in my Romantic Poetry class, I was allowed to work with a first edition of her last collection of poems, Lyrical Tales; which is housed in the 19th Century Collection at the Armstrong Browning Library. This book of poems is important to our study of Romantic poetry today because not only is it a near direct response to Lyrical Ballads, a book of poetry written by the now well-known William Wordsworth and S.T. Coleridge, but it also provides a glimpse at what women, or at the very least a particular woman, cared about during the Romantic period.