Womans Labour - Mary Collier

Eighteenth-century Poetry Was Dominated By Men Of Education And Wealth, And Bookcases Sagged Under The Weight Of Volumes By Swift, Johnson And Pope. When Stephen Ducks The Threshers Labour Was Published In 1730, However, It Was A Sensation Highlighting The Plight Of The Working Class In Verse Was Hereto Simply Unthought Of. Ducks Poem Came To The Attention Of Mary Collier, A Washerwoman Working In Hampshire, Who Was Astounded To Read Ducks Dismissal Of Women As Work-shy Layabouts Who Indulged In 'noisy Prattle', And She Penned A Stinging Riposte, The Womans Labour, Which Reframed Ducks Relation Of Harvest-time Toil From A Womans Perspective.this Edition Of The Womans Labour Seeks To Give A Wider View Of The Conversation, And Includes The Threshers Labour, 'the Three Wise Sentences' (which Collier Included In The First Publication Of Her Reply), 'an Epistolary Answer To An Exciseman Who Doubted Her Being The Author' And The Elegy She Wrote For Stephen Duck After He Died.