In 1866 Charles Dickens wrote an introduction to a posthumous edition of Adelaide Anne Procter's collected works, which has been, by far, the most influential biographical work on Procter. Dickens knew his subject well, not only because he had a long-standing friendship with her father, Bryan Waller Procter, but also because she was one of the most popular poets to appear in Dickens's periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round. According to Dickens, in December 1854 he was invited to lunch at the Procter house. That day he brought with him an issue of Household Words that included a poem by a poet whom he had been publishing and admiring for nearly two years but whom he knew only as Miss Berwick. The following afternoon he learned that he had spoken favorably of the poet and her poetry to his contributor's mother, in the contributor's presence, and that Miss...