Explores life-writing forms - almanacs, financial accounts, commonplace books and parish registers - which emerged during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

An in-depth examination of Lady Anne Halkett's writing is long overdue. Although Lady Anne Halkett is beginning to receive much warranted critical attention, to date scholars have concentrated almost exclusively on her autobiographical 'Memoirs'. Consequently, her extensive 'Select and Occasional Meditations,' have been neglected or marginalised. While these texts are devotional in nature, they also bear witness to Halkett's own sense of self and subjectivity. The structure of this edition provides the first opportunity for scholars to place Halkett's 'Memoirs' in its moment of production an in relation Halkett's other writings. In so doing, we gain a unique insight into a particular early modern woman's devotional practice and her developing subjectivity. Suzanne Trill's original introduction discusses how this combination of texts requires scholars to revise their representations of Halkett and her writing. Trill argues for a more detailed interrogation of Halkett's national and religious affliations; to this end, she offers an analysis of the religious conflicts between Scotland and England, 1660-1700, with particular reference to Halkett's representation of her ministers' experiences within this conflict. Halkett's intense engagement with contemporary social, political and religious changes makes her writing more than simply the record of an individual woman's life. This edition of selections of her writings offers a new angle on Halkett's life and writing that will be of interest to literary scholars, historians, linguists, and to those interested in women's studies in general.

Using printed and manuscript texts composed between 1575 and 1672, Jennifer Heller defines the genre of the mother's legacy as a distinct branch of the advice tradition in early modern England that takes the form of a dying mother's pious counsel to her children. Reading these texts in light of specific cultural contexts, social trends, and historical events, Heller explores how legacy writers used the genre to secure personal and family status, to shape their children's beliefs and behaviors, and to intervene in the period's tumultuous religious and political debates. The author's attention to the fine details of the period's religious and political swings, drawn from sources such as royal proclamations, sermons, and first-hand accounts of book-burnings, creates a fuller context for her analysis of the legacies. Similarly, Heller explains the appeal of the genre by connecting it to social factors including mortality rates and inheritance practices. Analyses of related genres, such as conduct books and fathers' legacies, highlight the unique features and functions of mothers' legacies. Heller also attends to the personal side of the genre, demonstrating that a writer's education, marriages, children, and turns of fortune affect her work within the genre.

Using printed and manuscript texts composed between 1575 and 1672, Jennifer Heller defines the genre of the mother's legacy as a distinct branch of the advice tradition in early modern England that takes the form of a dying mother's pious counsel to her children. Reading these texts in light of specific cultural contexts, social trends, and historical events, Heller explores how legacy writers used the genre to secure personal and family status, to shape their children's beliefs and behaviors, and to intervene in the period's tumultuous religious and political debates. The author's attention to the fine details of the period's religious and political swings, drawn from sources such as royal proclamations, sermons, and first-hand accounts of book-burnings, creates a fuller context for her analysis of the legacies. Similarly, Heller explains the appeal of the genre by connecting it to social factors including mortality rates and inheritance practices. Analyses of related genres, such as conduct books and fathers' legacies, highlight the unique features and functions of mothers' legacies. Heller also attends to the personal side of the genre, demonstrating that a writer's education, marriages, children, and turns of fortune affect her work within the genre.