Mary Leapor

Mary Leapor (1722–1746) was an English poet, the daughter of a gardener at Marston St Lawrence, Northamptonshire, who worked as a kitchen-maid in the household at Weldon and later at Brackley, where she wrote verse in the margins of her duties. She taught herself to read and write, and modelled her heroic couplets on Pope, Dryden and Gay. She died of measles at the age of twenty-four, before her work could appear.

Her Poems upon Several Occasions was published by subscription in 1748, after her death, and a second volume followed in 1751. Her verse mixes satire on vanity and marriage, pastoral, fables, biblical paraphrase and sharp reflections on class and women's lot; the poems about 'Mira', such as 'Mira's Will', are generally read as self-portraits of the poet.