In her writing Emily Pfeiffer addressed many Victorian controversies, including the debate over women's rights and status, the cultural struggle between science and religion, the tension between art and politics, and the economic and class structure of England. She believed in freedom, justice, and the ultimate triumph of human conscience. First and foremost a poet of sonnets, lyrics, dramatic monologues, ballads, and blank-verse drama, Pfeiffer also published political essays, travelogues, and a few mixed-genre works. Despite ill health and insomnia, Pfeiffer wrote tirelessly about the struggles of women, including single women, working-class women, foreign women, and "ruined" women. Her literary career connects her with such authors as Alfred, Lord Tennyson; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; George Eliot; and the Pre-Raphaelite poets Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Rossetti.

Emily Jane Davis was born on 26 November 1827 to the former Miss Tilsley of Milford Hall, Montgomeryshire, Wales, and Thomas Richard Davis, an army...