This anthology represents a re-examination of its field, based on extensive archival research. Each woman's work is accompanied by a headnote which combines biographic information with some guidance as to the context, intended audience and genre.

An anthology of previously unpublished and hard-to-find poetic material from early modern women who wrote in manuscript form. It features a broad and useful introduction examining the phenomenon of manuscript writing, and biographical notes preface the work of each author

11. A Rhetoric of Innocence: The Poetry of Katherine Philips, 'The Matchless Orinda' -- 12. 'Very Like a Fiction': Some Early Biographies of Aphra Behn -- Notes on Contributors -- Index

Much has been written about women of the English Renaissance, but few examples of women's writing from that era have been readily available until now. This remarkable anthology assembles for the first time 144 primary texts and documents written by women between 1550 and 1700 and reveals an unprecedented view of the intellectual and literary lives of women in early modern England. The writings range from poetry to philosophical treatises, addressing a wide array of subjects including law, gender, education, motherhood, medicine, religion, life-writing, and the arts. Each selection is paired with a beautifully reproduced facsimile of the text's original source manuscript, allowing a glimpse into the literary past that will lead the reader to truly appreciate the care and craft with which these women writers prepared their texts. This essential anthology is a captivating guide to the legacy of early modern women's literature and its authors that must not be overlooked.

This book contains the first comprehensive account of writing by women from the mid sixteenth century through to 1700. At the same time, it traces the way a representative sample of that writing was published, circulated in manuscript, read, anthologised, reprinted, and discussed from the time it was produced through to the present day. Salzman's study covers an enormous range of women from all areas of early modern society, and it covers examples of the many and varied genres produced by these women, from plays to prophecies, diaries to poems, autobiographies to philosophy. As well as introducing readers to the wealth of material produced by women in the early modern period, this book examines changing responses to what was written, tracing a history of reception and transmission that amounts to a cultural history of changing taste.

Ideal for courses, this Companion examines the range, historical importance, and aesthetic merit of women's writing in Britain, 1500-1700.

This text features 28 essays written by important international scholars on the major poems of the English Renaissance. It offers scholarship on subjects ranging from the invention of English verse, Petrarchism, pastoral, elegy, and satire, to women's religious verse, the place of homoeroticism and Cavalier poetry.