Surprisingly, glimmerings of ecofeminist theory that would emerge a century later can be detected in women's poetry of the late Victorian period. In Reconceiving Nature, Patricia Murphy examines the work of six ecofeminist poetsAugusta Webster, Mathilde Blind, Michael Field, Alice Meynell, Constance Naden, and L. S. Bevingtonwho contested the exploitation of the natural world. Challenging prevalent assumptions that nature is inferior, rightly subordinated, and deservedly manipulated, these poets instead "reconstructed" nature.