Although Ruth Pitter 18971992 is not well known her credentials as a poet are extensive and in England from the mid1930s to the mid1970s she maintained a modest yet loyal readership. In total she produced eighteen volumes of new and collected verse. Her A Trophy of Arms 1936 won the Hawthornden Prize for Poetry in 1937 and in 1954 she was awarded the William E. Heinemann Award for The Ermine 1953. Most notably perhaps she became the first woman to receive the Queens Gold Medal for Poetry in 1