The first romance written by an Englishwoman, Mary Wroth's Countess of Montgomery's Urania is a literary tour de force in its own right. As the niece of Sir Philip Sidney, Mary Wroth was ideally situated as an observer and reporter of the social, literary, and political milieu of her time. This abridged modern-spelling edition, with a useful introduction and index of characters, makes this work newly accessible to general readers, students, and scholars.

This is the first modernized edition of the poems of Lady Mary Wroth. Born circa 1587 and married in 1604, Lady Mary was part of the Queen's entourage at the court of King James I. The poems reproduced here are from Urania, a chivalric romance published in 1621, and Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, a sonnet sequence.