The extraordinary Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (1561 – 1621), was an almost exact contemporary of Shakespeare and has been one of the candidates in various conspiracy theories for the actual author of Shakespeare’s works, in particular his sonnets.

Even though this is nonsense, Mary Sidney, sister of the more famous Philip, was arguably Shakespeare’s – and almost everyone else’s – equal as a poet.

This introduction to Mary Sidney’s life and work is excerpted from Killing the Angel: Early Transgressive British Woman Writers by Francis Booth ©2021, reprinted by permission.

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