Mona Wilson began her twenty-six-year career as a literary biographer after retiring from a distinguished career in government service. Her choice of subjects, ranging in time from the sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century, reflects the breadth and depth of her literary and scholarly interests. Her purpose was to bring new evidence and appreciation to bear upon the lives and works of English writers who were misunderstood, neglected, or even unknown. Wilson's major biographies of William Blake and Sir Philip Sidney are notable for their emendations of earlier studies; and her biographical studies of little-known eighteenth-century women writers brought them to the attention of both general readers and literary scholars.

Born in 1872 in Clifton, just south of Nottingham, England, Mona Wilson was the eldest daughter of the Reverend James Maurice Wilson, D.D., headmaster of Clifton and later canon of Worcester. She attended Clifton High School and...