Poems Written on Different Occasions (1806), the first volume published by Charlotte (née Smith) Richardson of York (1775– 1825), is the poet's subjective record of losses, lamentations and attempts at self-consolation; her second volume, Poems Chiefly Composed During the Pressure of Severe Illness (1809), continues many of the themes of bereavement while marking Richardson’s expanding social sphere and perspective. Both volumes, supplemented by archival materials, afford a chance to consider the ways in which sustained and repeated bereavement may be understood not only as a material status but also as an affective and social process, a moral standpoint and a trope constructed within a larger series of losses that in Richardson's case includes bastardy, orphanhood, widowhood and parental bereavement. Far from jealously guarding her bereavement and distinguishing her own case as unique, Richardson developed bereavement as a lens through which she viewed others, seeing in them, as in herself, bereavements that were actual, feared and conjectured. Her social impulses, in both text and action, may have been inspired by the various York charitable institutions from which she benefited; but, in Richardson's case, the institutions did not erode or erase her individual identity – a danger that Cheryl L. Nixon sees in charitable institutions created for poor orphans in particular (Nixon 40). Rather, read alongside the totality of print and manuscript records of Richardson's life (many from York charitable institutions), her writings demonstrate her navigation of social relations, her increasing civic engagement beyond expected spheres, and, eventually, her redefinition of her own orphanhood through her adult actions.

Richardson's entry into the world was defined for current and later readers by her self-appointed ‘editor’, Catherine Cappe (1744–1821). In her preface to Richardson's first volume, Cappe writes, ‘Charlotte Smith was born in the year 1775, under circumstances the most unfavourable’ (vii). Cappe was widely regarded for her activity in York charities, including the Grey Coat Girls School, the York Dispensary and the York Female Friendly Society. Cappe's 1806 and 1809 prefaces, and the biographical sketches of Richardson therein, provide useful glosses on several of the poems in the volumes but leave a fair number of gaps, wrought in part by Cappe's construction of Richardson as meditating piously on adversity while depending upon religion and active charity to set her on a path towards stability, health and usefulness.