Poet Caroline Bowles contributed to gift annuals and periodicals and published several books of verse, prose tales, and essays. She began her career with Ellen Fitzarthur: A Metrical Tale (1820), which she sent to poet laureate Robert Southey, whom she did not at the time know. Southey was impressed with the work and assisted her with revisions and locating a publisher, beginning what proved to be a long and close friendship. Thereafter followed The Widow's Tale and Other Poems (1822); Solitary Hours (1846); Chapters on Churchyards (1842); The Cat's Tail, being the History of Childe Merlin (under the pseudonym Baroness de Katzleben; 1831); Tales of the Factories (1833); and The Birth-Day; A Poem, in Three Parts, to Which Are Added, Occasional Verses (1845). Bowles and Southey published a collaborative volume, Robin Hood: A Fragment, By the Late Robert Southey and Caroline Southey, with Other Fragments and Poems in 1847. Caroline Bowles married Robert Southey in 1839. Southey died a few years later, setting in motion family conflicts with one of his daughters, in which several major literary figures, including William Wordsworth, took sides. Though Caroline Southey was regarded by many as a talented writer, her literary reputation suffered in consequence.