Very little is known of Isabella Whitney's life, other than what she says in her poems. She was a sister of Geoffrey Whitney, who came of a Cheshire family. Having published two volumes of non-religious verse, she is the first secular woman poet in England.

• Travitsky, Betty S. "Whitney, Isabella (fl. 1566–1573)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
• Whitney, Isabella. The copy of a letter, lately written in meeter, by a yonge gentilwoman: to her vnconstant louer With an admonitio[n] to al yong gentilwomen, and to all other mayds in general to beware of mennes flattery. London: Richard Jones, 1567.
• --. A sweet nosgay, or pleasant posye: contayning a hundred and ten phylosophicall flowers. London: Richard Jones, 1573.