ABSTRACT
Date and publication. Probably written October 1685 (Winn 611). First printed as a prefatory poem to Poems by Mrs Anne Killigrew, published by Samuel Lowndes and dated 1686 (licensed 30 September 1685; advertised in The Observator 2 November 1685; SR 2 October; TC November). Reprinted with revisions in EP (1693). The present text is based on 1686, with the EP revisions (at ll. 12, 124, 128, 139–40, 141, 148) given in the notes (siglum: 1693). Indentation has been rationalized to correspond with the length of the lines, and additional triplet braces supplied at ll. 68–70, 77–9, 146–8, 165–7, and 193–5. Pace Works, there is no evidence for believing that the italicization in either 1686 or 1693 is authorial.
