Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning

Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning is a revised and expanded edition of the first American poetry collection published in the colonies, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America. The work was compiled by Anne Bradstreet, an English-born poet who settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.1

Bradstreet wrote her poems while managing domestic duties, raising eight children, and frequently moving within the colony. Her initial poems were published without her knowledge in England in 1650. The 1678 edition, Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning, includes her earlier works, which often imitated contemporary poetic conventions, alongside more personal and genuine poems reflecting her spiritual growth and family life. These later poems, such as "Contemplations," are noted for their individual voice and beauty.1