Poems by the Most Deservedly Admired Mrs Katherine Philips, the Matchless Orinda (1667) is the authorised collection of Katherine Philips's poetry, published three years after her death. It gathers her poems on friendship, love and public events, and her translations of Corneille.
The book
The folio edition of 1667 was prepared by her friend Sir Charles Cotterell, who had encouraged her. It contains over a hundred poems and her verse translations of Corneille's Pompey and Horace.
It replaced a pirated edition of 1664, which Philips had disowned shortly before her death that year.
Poems of friendship
Many poems are addressed to Lucasia, Anne Owen, and to other members of her Society of Friendship. They describe friendship as a union of souls, purer than love between men and women.
To my excellent Lucasia, on our Friendship is one of the best known, celebrating the moment when she could say she was no longer her own but Lucasia's.
Reputation
The book was reprinted in 1669 and 1678. Philips was presented as a model of virtuous female authorship, and later women writers looked back to her.
Modern critics have renewed interest in her poems as early expressions of intimacy between women.
Anecdotes
Praised by poets
The 1667 edition opens with commendatory poems by Abraham Cowley and others, praising Orinda as the glory of her sex.
A portrait bust
The frontispiece shows Philips as a classical bust on a pedestal, an image of the honour given to her as a poet.
Frequently asked questions
When was the authorised edition published?
In 1667, three years after Philips's death.
Who edited it?
Sir Charles Cotterell, her friend, whom she called Poliarchus.
What does it include besides poems?
Her verse translations of Corneille's tragedies Pompey and Horace.