In case you wondered …

… Whatever Happened to Light Verse?  (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In his introduction to a collection of McGinley’s verse, W.H. Auden places her in the company of Jane Austen, Colette, and Virginia Woolf. Versifiers like McGinley were often held in high esteem by sophisticates like Auden and also managed to entertain millions of readers who had probably never been exposed to the works of Woolf, Colette, Austen, or even Auden himself. Auden was in fact an excellent writer of light verse. He became an American citizen at the age of 39, so much of his verse can be categorized as American, at least technically.