Katherine or Catherine Philips , also known as "The Matchless Orinda", was an Anglo-Welsh royalist poet, translator, and woman of letters. She achieved renown as a translator of Pierre Corneille's Pompée and Horace, and for her editions of poetry after her death. In 1663, her adaptation of Pompey was the first play with an English script to be given a professional staging by a woman. She was highly regarded by many significant writers of 17th century literature including John Dryden and John Keats as being influential in her writing, and ahead of her time. She is also significant in the literary community for her works inspired by her fervent inner relationships with other women, and the mystery surrounding those relationships that still lives to this day.
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Poem LXIV: 'A Friend
'On the Death of my First and Dearest Child, Hector Philips' (1655), as reported in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ed. Elizabeth Knowles (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 575
