Parthian Books My love - all Love excels: The Remarkable Life and Times of 17th-Century Poet, Katherine Philips

As with many early women writers who have been ignored by historians – mostly because they were women – and because of her reputation for female affection, Katherine Philips slipped into obscurity a few decades after her death in 1664. She was rediscovered in the early twentieth century by an American lesbian poet and the first female town mayor in Wales, and interest in Katherine grew, but slowly. It was not until the late twentieth century, that people began to recognise how truly extraordinary Katherine was. Only recently has it been acknowledged that her political and landscape writing were some of the first in the UK by a woman. Equally, Katherine is the first notable poet to adapt the standard poetic template couched in the male voice, making it hers, she created a female poet with a male voice.She lived in violent times; the Civil War pitted families against each other, she was a Royalist while her husband was a Parliamentarian and with the restoration of the monarchy she faced a choice, leave him to his fate or save him. Yet it is her love for two Welsh women that dominated Katherine’ s life. Autorid: Norena Shopland