Bessie Rayner Parkes was a poet, feminist, activist, essayist, and journalist. In addition to publishing three volumes of poetry, Parkes played an important part in the beginning years of the women's rights movement in Great Britain. She made her most significant contribution in 1858 when she helped to establish The English Woman's Journal. The headquarters of the journal at Langham Place in London became a focal point for those organizing on behalf of women's legal and economic welfare. At least a dozen of Parkes's 135 published poems deal with women's issues.

Parkes was born on 16 June 1829 to Joseph Parkes, a Birmingham solicitor and Unitarian radical, and Elizabeth Priestley Parkes. Her mother's father was Joseph Priestley, the Unitarian theologian, political radical, and scientist who had isolated oxygen as one of the component elements of air. Parkes grew up in a cultivated environment, and from early childhood was associated with the country's...