A lesbian poet and short story writer, Charlotte Mew was born in London to an architect. She was brought up rater strictly. She began writing stories and verses during her teens.
Her short story Passed appeared in "The Yellow Book" in 1894, but she did not become well known until her first volume of poetry The Farmer's Bride (1915). Her second volume, The Rambling Sailor, appeared posthumously in 1929.
Her poems are notable for restraint of expression combined with a powerful and passionate content which distinguish her from many of her Georgian contemporaries. Her passionate love of the writers Ella D'Arcy and May Sinclair came to nothing.
She committed suicide, by drinking a bottle of disinfectant, after destroying almost all of her poetry, quite certainly to eliminate all record of her lesbianism. Given the high quality of her surviving work, this was a great loss to English literature.
