ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that Ann Yearsley’s last publication was intended as part of a clutch of works published by the Joseph Cottle circle almost simultaneously at a time when members of that group were keenly interested in the political potential of retirement. Yearsley had a rather different secondary existence’ accorded to her by posterity, though the early signs were that she would be remembered, like Hannah More, with fondness and admiration. Where Yearsley had been posthumously lauded as an important poet of her generation in the 1800s and 1810s, Robert Southey’s essay removes her from that generation – a generation that had included Southey himself, of course – indicating that the only significance she holds is as an ‘unlettered poet’. By extracting Yearsley from the vibrant and instead locating her within a group of poets with whom she was only tangentially related when active as a writer, Southey played a significant part in marginalizing her work.
