Anne Bradstreet is regarded today as America’s first poet. Bradstreet was born in England and came to Massachusetts in 1630, when she was eighteen years old. Her puritan father, Thomas Dudley, a leading figure in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, had encouraged her education as a child. Her poetry consequently drew from her knowledge of a broad range of subjects, from the Bible and theology, to anatomy and astronomy. She wrote primarily for herself and her circle of friends and family. In 1650, however, her brother-in-law published a collection of her poems, supposedly without her knowledge, as The Tenth Muse. This work brought Bradstreet fame on both sides of the Atlantic, making her the first English woman in the British colonies to publish a book of poetry. This copy is a first edition.