“The maner of her Wyll, and what she left to London, and all those in it: at her departing”

1573 Whitney, Isabella (b. 1545?-78? fl. 1566–73). “The maner of her Wyll, and what she left to London, and all those in it: at her departing.” In her A sweet Nosegay, or Pleasant Posye: contayning a hundred and ten Phylosophicall Flowers (London: R. Jones, 1573), unpaged. Rpt. in The Floures of Philosophie (1572) by Hugh Plat and A Sweet Nosegay (1573) and The Copy of a Letter (1567) by Isabella Whitney (Delmar, NY: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1982), unpaged; in Michael David Felker, “The Poems of Isabella Whitney: A Critical Edition.” Dissertation. Texas Tech University, 1990: 99-112 with “Notes on the Poem” (160-68); and in Isabella Whitney, Mary Sidney and Aemilia Lanyer: Renaissance Women Poets. Ed. Danielle Clarke (London: Penguin Books, 2000), 19-28 with “Notes” (291-98). L, PSt

The poem describes in detail a London that is prosperous, clean, and safe. The author appears to be the first woman to have published a volume of original secular poetry in English and the first woman to publish a utopia in English.