The first comprehensive biography of this undervalued writer, who was considered 'far and away the best living woman poet' in her day.

Julia Copus has published four collections of poetry and been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and Costa Book awards. Her most recent collection, Girlhood, was published by Faber in 2019 and was the inaugural winner of the USA's Derek Walcott Prize for best poetry collection by a non-US citizen. Other awards include First Prize in the UK's National Poetry Competition and the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. Her 2021 biography of Bloomsbury poet Charlotte Mew, This Rare Spirit, was chosen by Sir Andrew Motion as a Spectator Book of the Year and described by John Carey in the Sunday Times as "a triumph of precise scholarship and imaginative sympathy". She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.