Beachy Head is Charlotte Smith’s second and last long poem, and many contemporary scholars believe it to be the best work of her career. It was published in 1807 as the first work in her poetry collection, Beachy Head, with other poems. Though Smith attempted to see it into print before her death, she succumbed to illness before she was able to complete it to her own satisfaction. Thus, it was published posthumously, prepared for publication by others. A key distinguishing feature of the poem is its hybridity. Composed in blank verse, it evokes the epic genre while also evincing conventions of the georgic, pastoral, and elegy. An autobiographical loco-descriptive work replete with a wide range of lengthy explanatory footnotes, it was innovative in both its aesthetics and its scientific practice. The poem is an important and influential touchstone in the emergence of British Romanticism and has, in the twenty-first century, come to be appreciated as a work that resonates with late-capitalist concerns and postmodern sensibilities.