Isabella Whitney is thought of as the first professional female poet and writer in England, where she lived during the late 1550s. She is attributed as being the first Englishwoman to have written and published her own unreligious poetry. Whitney was a very unusual woman for her time, in part because she wrote freely about female love and relationships in a way that was seen as unconventional at the time.
Throughout her life, Isabella Whitney published two short poetry anthologies, The Copy of a Letter in 1567 and A Sweet Nosegay in 1573. Both of which included a selection of love poems, as well as autobiographical meditations on Whitney's own life, where she would delve into the deeply personal romantic relationships that she had as well as the hardship she experienced after one man left her and ran away to marry another woman.
Isabella Whitney lived in London, where many of her poems are based, but after she lost her job as a servant she was no longer able to support herself financially so she returned home to her family in Ryles Green. Very uncommonly for the time, she was pregnant on her own, as the father of her child had run off. Much of the female strength and independence present in Whitney's poems come from her own struggles that she felt were important to relate and support other women, which she did through her poems.
