The Author to Her Book

Anne Bradstreet’s poem “The Author to Her Book” (1678) appears in the collection Several Poems…by a gentlewoman in New-England, a posthumous collection that revised and expanded The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America…, which many critics see as the first published work in English by a settler-colonist woman from North America. “The Author to Her Book” is a poem about the writer’s fears of what readers will make of her creative legacy. The poem relies on an extended metaphor that compares a book to a child, a comparison that appears widely in the classical and Renaissance poetry Bradstreet read as part of the excellent education she received. “The Author to Her Book” is important as a work because it gives insight into Anglo-American print culture of the 17th century and the authorial anxiety of female writers.

Poet Biography

Anne Dudley Bradstreet was born in 1612 in England. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, an estate steward for the Earl of Lincoln. Bradstreet’s proximity to the aristocracy afforded her access to a library and education that were typical for the nobility and gentry. She would have read classical Greek and Roman works, learned Latin and other ancient languages, and been exposed to the thriving literary culture of the Renaissance.