On the basis of her “Remarks” at the beginning of Poems on Several Occasions (1762), which account for virtually all that is known about her, Mary Collier must have been born c.1690. She states that she was born near Midhurst in Sussex, “of poor, but honest Parents” (“Some Remarks upon the Author’s Life”, 1762: iii) who taught her to read until her mother’s early death. Nothing more was known about her birth until the scholar H. Gustav Klaus discovered parish records in 2000 that make reference to a “Mary, daughter of William Collyer”, baptised at Lodsworth, three miles from Midhurst, on 9 October 1688 (Klaus, 2000: 201-04). Collier was not sent …
3585 words
Citation: Van-Hagen, Stephen. "Mary Collier". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 March 2007; last revised 10 March 2022. [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=955, accessed 25 November 2024.]
