Contemporaries considered Lydia Sigourney the most popular poet in America and the woman most respected and loved by the American people. Her fame rivaled that of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and surpassed that of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Because of the financial success and quantity of her books, Sigourney became the first self-supporting American professional woman writer. Her renown was so great that her name became a commodity sought after by various publishers to advertise their periodicals and newspapers. Sigourney's fame was not limited to America. She was often referred to as the American Hemens, a reference to Felicia Hemens, the most popular female poet in England at the time. After Hemens's death in 1835 Sigourney was considered the only one who could fill the void left in the literary world and became the standard against which other women poets were judged. Sigourney's books had unprecedented sales and popularity throughout her...