[4] Her father travelled, the family's finances were strained, and her mother, whose literary career had ended with her marriage, suffered from recurrent depression.

[5] In 1749 or thereabouts, her mother joined the Methodist circle of John Wesley (1703–1791) and Selina Hastings (1707–1791).

The couple had six children:[7][8] Cowper's husband died after two decades of marriage and she lived a widow for another twenty-eight years, first in York and then, after 1772, in London.

[11] Initially published as by "a lady," a footnote in the third edition misidentifies the author as "Mrs. Cowper, the aunt of the immortal poet"[12] when she was in fact his cousin.

The preface is short and offers a standard modest disclaimer that the poems are published at the request of friends.