Epistolary Poetics: Reading the Manuscript Interventions of Melesina Trench

C three copies of the first page of Melesina Trench’s poem “On the Loss of Elizabeth Melesina Trench, an Only Daughter, In her fifth year” with marginalia in the hand of the author (figures 1–3). Even at a glance, their differences in content and location of marginalia are striking: an inscription at the head of the page, some organized around the poem’s title, others footnoted below the printed text. While these are but three copies, their idiosyncratic manuscript