In her lifetime the Anglo-Latin poet Elizabeth Jane Weston (Elisabetha Joanna Westonia) enjoyed considerable fame on the Continent: she is one of seven English authors included by Thomas Farnaby in his Index Poeticus (1634) and the only woman to appear in his entire list of distinguished Latin writers, past and present. Although her subsequent obscurity was the result of declining interest in Neo-Latin literature and her lifelong residence outside England, she provides fascinating evidence of a British presence at the court of Rudolph II in Prague and of one talented woman's ability to flourish within the international republic of letters constituted by the humanists of her time.

An explanation for Weston's presence in Prague was provided by Karel Hrdina in 1928, when he reported on a unique copy of her poem on the death of her mother; not until 1988 was this information made available to English readers by Susan Bassnett...