Women poets in nineteenth-century France made important contributions to major stylistic innovations--from the birth of elegiac Romanticism to the inauguration of free verse--and many were prominent in their lifetime, yet only a few are known today, and nearly all have been unavailable in English translation. Of the fourteen poets of this anthology some were wealthy, others struggled in poverty; some were socially conventional, others were cynical or defiant. Their poems range widely in style and idea, from Romantic to Parnassian to symbolist. The translators are Anne Atik, Michael Bishop, Mary Ann Caws, Melanie Hawthorne, J. S. A. Lowe, Rosemary Lloyd, Laurence Porter, Christopher Rivers, Gretchen Schultz, Patricia Terry, and Rosanna Warren.