Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) was a Victorian lesbian poet who, born in London, had neither a formal nor a particularly literary education. Despite this, she wrote elegiac and passionate poetry, her best considered to be the form of dramatic monologues, and her melancholic tone may be the result of the tragedies she experienced from an early age. She lost most of her siblings, three out of four brothers, who unfortunately died in childhood. Henry, his older brother, "began to show signs of mental breakdown",1 followed later by his sister Freda, who, when she showed similar symptoms, was placed in an asylum. Mew's family's history of mental instability, as well as the social stigma surrounding mental illness at that time, which "cautioned against procreation by unfit people" 2, for fear of passing on mental illness, contributes to one of the reasons why Charlotte did not consider the possibility of marriage, and she and Anne, her sister, both vowed not to marry. Mew mainly wrote short stories and only took up poetry later in life, when she was already in her forties. However, although she has not enlightened others with details of her family history, and particularly the medical conditions of her siblings, she instead addresses this subject through her poetry, insanity being one of the themes on which she writes, as in 'On the Asylum Road'. Mew attended Gower Street School, and it was there that she became "passionately attached to the headmistress, Lucy Harrison."3 This was the first of many female sexual interests for Charlotte, and she was "attracted to "smart things, strong-minded women", however, disappointingly for Mew, this sentiment was not shared throughout her life. In 1902, it was Ella D'...... middle of paper...... Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English [page 354]. Oxford University Press, 1994.10, “The Ballad of Charlotte Mew” – Modern Philology, Vol. No. 2 (November 1997) [p. 212]. The University of Chicago Press. Stable article URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43898911. Victorian Poets – An Anthology [Pg. 645]. Bonnie Kime Scott, The Gender of Modernism – A Critical Anthology [Pg.318]. Indiana University Press, 1990.14. Bonnie Kime Scott, The Gender of Modernism – A Critical Anthology [Pg.320]. Indiana University Press, 1990.15. Angela Leighton and Margaret Reynolds, Victorian Poets – An Anthology [Pg. 646]. Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1995.