One of the most flamboyant free spirits of the late eighteenth century, darling of the London stage, mistress to the most powerful men in England, feminist thinker, and bestselling author, described by Samuel Taylor Coleridge as "a woman of undoubted genius," Mary Robinson led a life that was marked by reversals of fortune. Abandoned by her merchant father, Mary was married at 15. Her husband landed the couple and their baby in debtors' prison, where she wrote her first book of poetry. On her release, she rose to become one of the London theater's most alluring actresses. The Prince of Wales fell madly in love with her, and she later used his love letters as blackmail. After being struck down by paralysis, apparently following a miscarriage, she remade herself yet again, this time as a popular writer admired by the leading intellectuals of the day.