Mrs Maria Iliff was an actress, singer, poet, and novelist who, while
residing in Malta in 1818, published the book Poems, upon Several Subjects.
This slim volume should interest scholars of Maltese literature as it includes
what are probably the first two unpublished poems (possibly folk songs) in the
vernacular ever to appear in an English-language book. Mrs Iliff also provides
a free translation of these poems in English. The same poems are also found in
a manuscript entitled 'Canzonete in lingua maltese', compiled some time later,
in 1825, by Dr Giuseppe Zammit. This paper compares and contrasts the two
versions from an orthographic and textual point ofview, and seeks to shed some
light on the character of written Maltese during the early years of British rule in
Malta.peer-reviewe
