Surprisingly, glimmerings of ecofeminist theory that would emerge a century later can be detected in women’s poetry of the late Victorian period. In Reconceiving Nature, Patricia Murphy examines the work of six ecofeminist poets—Augusta Webster, Mathilde Blind, Michael Field, Alice Meynell, Constance Naden, and L. S. Bevington—who contested the exploitation of the natural world. Challenging prevalent assumptions that nature is inferior, rightly subordinated, and deservedly manipulated, these poets instead “reconstructed” nature.

Patricia Murphy is Professor Emerita of English at Missouri Southern State University and the author of four books, including The New Woman Gothic: Reconfigurations of Distress and In Science’s Shadow: Literary Constructions of Late Victorian Women (both University of Missouri Press) and Time Is of the Essence: Temporality, Gender, and the New Woman (SUNY Press). She lives in Joplin, Missouri.