Bradstreet, Anne, n�e Dudley 1612-72
American Puritan poet

Born in Northampton, England, in 1628 she married a Nonconformist minister, Simon Bradstreet (1603-97), who later became Governor of Massachusetts. She emigrated with her husband to New England in 1630. Her first volume of poems, The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America, written in the style of Phineas Fletcher, was published by her brother-in-law in London in 1650 without her knowledge. She is considered the first English poet in America.

Bibliography: Wendy Martin, An American Triptych: Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich (1986); E W White, Anne Bradstreet: the tenth muse (1971)