Anne Killigrew

Introduction

The poems of Anne Killigrew, which were notably commended by John Dryden, were posthumously published in 1686. No manuscript of any of them was known to survive until a manuscript of five of them came to light among the Evelyn papers in the British Library (KiA 1-5). Since no clear examples of her handwriting have yet come to light, it is impossible to verify the hand in this manuscript, but the versions clearly predate the printed texts and the neat rounded script may well be Killigrew's own formal hand.

Peter Beal