Introduction
Apart from attempts by some scholars to identify her as the ‘Dark Lady’ of Shakespeare's Sonnets, Emilia Lanier (née Bassano) is traditionally distinguished as the first woman of her time to publish in England a volume of her own poetry. This was a collection of religious verse entitled Salve Deus rex Judaeorum (1611). There appear to be no surviving manuscript copies of any of these poems.
Peter Beal