This edition is made up of 217 poems, ordered chronologically, so that the reader can follow Mansfield's development as a poet and her experiments with different forms as well as trace the themes such as love and death, the natural world and the seasons, childhood and friendship, music and song which preoccupied her throughout her writing life. The comprehensive annotations provide illuminating biographical information as well as explaining the rich contexts of the European poetic tradition, including fin de siècle decadence, within which her artistry is steeped.

The inclusion of a collection of newly-discovered poems, dating from 1909-10, highlights Mansfield's desire to be taken seriously as a poet from her earliest beginnings as a writer. The poems as a whole point to a poet who varied her craft as she perfected it, often witty and ironic yet always enchanted by the sound of words.