Sarah Fyge Egerton (1668-1723) is an intriguing poet who wrote a great deal of poetry during a period when women poets were relatively rare. Her career also began at an astonishingly early age: she was barely fourteen years old when one of her poems was first printed in London. Throughout much of her life Egerton used poetry to share her thoughts, vent her feelings, and participate, to a highly unusual degree, in the public discourse of her times. The Female Advocate is perhaps her most famous single work. It was her very first publication and was printed three times in her own lifetime"in 1686, in a revised edition in 1687 and once more in 1707. The original 1686 edition is included in this volume along with the third edition of 1707, which is very rare. Alongside The Female Advocate in this volume is Egerton's Poems on Several Occasions, Together with a Pastoral. This is a diverse volume with no obvious pattern or design but which includes many poems which display real talent and can express surprisingly assertive or unexpected views, suggesting the volume deserves far more analytical attention than it has yet received.
