Poetry. Women's Studies. Introduction by Michele Leggott. VERSES is a book-length collection of poems that Ridge wrote when she lived in New Zealand and Australia, before she came to the United States in 1907. Completed by 1905, VERSES was submitted to the Sydney Bulletin's literary editor for possible book publication. It remained in the Mitchell Library of the State Library of New South Wales in Australia unpublished until now. These forty-six poems represent Ridge's earliest poetic output. Their spirit evokes, and is based in, the life of pioneer miners in New Zealand and Australia. Written in formal rhyming verse (except for one blank verse poem), these poems presage Ridge's grounding in the mystical forces of nature. They also reveal her nascent interest in social justice. And they portray, towards the end of the collection a humorous side to her work. VERSES attends to Ridge's attention to person and place.?Australasia in the late nineteenth century comes alive in these poems. This book features an introduction by Michele Leggott, who situates Ridge's work in fin de si cle New Zealand and Australia. Leggott also surveys Ridge's peripatetic existence during the early part of her life and Ridge's development as a poet. Michele Leggott is Professor of English at the University of Auckland and was the Inaugural New Zealand Poet Laureate 2007-09. She has published eight poetry collections, including Mirabile Dictu (2009), Heartland (2014) and Vanishing Points (2017). She edited Robin Hyde's long poem The Book of Nadath (1999) and Young Knowledge: The Poems of Robin Hyde (2003). With Martin Edmond, she co-edited Beyond the Ohlala Mountains: Alan Brunton Poems 1968-2002 (2013). A major project since 2001 has been the development of the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre (nzepc) at the University of Auckland. Leggott was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) in the 2009 New Year Honours for services to poetry, and in 2013 she received the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry. In 2017 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.