Nancy Luce, a poor woman in ill health who lived alone and loved her chickens, spent her entire life (1814-1890) on Martha's Vineyard and wrote her own unique brand of poetry, which she self-published and sold to the summer trade.
Walter Magnes Teller published this appreciation of Luce's life and poetry in 1984, with the help of the Dukes County Historical Society (today the Martha's Vineyard Museum). Said the New York Times, of the work in 1986, “Reading the book makes one wonder how many Nancy Luces and their male counterparts have existed - sensitive people doomed by invalidism and lack of both financial and emotional support, but determined to leave behind some record, some expression, no matter how meager.”