SOURCE: Landry, Donna. “The Resignation of Mary Collier: Some Problems in Feminist Literary History.” In Muses of Resistance: Labouring-Class Women's Poetry in Britain, 1739-1796, pp. 56-77. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Landry argues for the importance of Collier's “The Woman's Labour” and discusses how the poet resigned herself to her life of servitude, while at the same time offering resistance to the status quo through a new mode of poetry.

Tho' She pretends not to the Genius of Mr. Duck, nor hopes to be taken Notice of by the Great, yet her Friends are of Opinion that the Novelty of a Washer-Woman's turning poetess, will procure her some Readers.

(Advertisement to the first edition of The Woman's Labour [1739])

It should be clear that working class women's oppression poses the key theoretical problem here; for unlike women's subordination in feudal society or within the...