Epistles On Women and Other Works

Previously out of print, Lucy Aikin’s ambitious feminist poem traces women’s contributions to the development of civilization.

Henry James wrote of Lucy Aikin: “Clever, sagacious, shrewd ... and an accomplished writer, one wonders why her vigorous intellectual temperament has not attracted independent notice.” The most important long poem by a woman from the British Romantic era, Aikin’s Epistles on Women (1810) is the first text in English to re-write the entire history of western culture, from the creation story of Genesis through the eighteenth century, from a feminist perspective. Responding to Alexander Pope’s misogynistic “Epistle to a Lady,” Aikin argues that men’s degradation of women has hindered the growth of civilization, and provides historical and literary evidence for her claim that “man cannot degrade woman without degrading himself.”

In addition to Epistles on Women, this Broadview Edition also includes a wide selection of poetry, historical writing, fiction, memoir, and literary criticism by Aikin, as well as letters, contemporary reviews, and other feminist historiographies.