Constance Aston Fowler was a seventeenth century English manuscript author and anthologist. Born "Constance Aston" about 1621, she was the youngest child of Sir Walter Aston

Walter Aston

Lieutenant Colonel Walter Aston was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in the first half of the 17th century....

. Her home was The Priory at St. Thomas, near the family home of Tixal Hall

Tixall Gatehouse

Tixall Gatehouse is a 16th-century gatehouse situated at Tixall, near Stafford, Staffordshire and is all that remains of Tixall Hall. It is a Grade I listed building....

 in Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...

 and Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

.

Her Verse Miscellany of Constance Aston Fowler is studied as an example of "how manuscript texts were produced, disseminated, and preserved in provincial areas."

"Constance Aston Fowler constructed her own private anthology, in which she mingled the poems of her family with ones by Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson

Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...

, Henry King

Henry King (poet)

-Life:The eldest son of John King, Bishop of London, and his wife Joan Freeman, he was baptised at Worminghall, Buckinghamshire, 16 January 1592. He was educated at Lord Williams's School, Westminster School and in 1608 became a student of Christ Church, Oxford...

, and John Donne

John Donne

John Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...

 .
Her father, her brother Herbert, her sister Gertrude, and their friend Lady Dorothy Shirley contributed poetry..

Secondary sources