The first romance written by an Englishwoman, Mary Wroth's Countess of Montgomery's Urania is a literary tour de force in its own right. As the niece of Sir Philip Sidney, Mary Wroth was ideally situated as an observer and reporter of the social, literary, and political milieu of her time. This abridged modern-spelling edition, with a useful introduction and index of characters, makes this work newly accessible to general readers, students, and scholars.

Lady Mary Wroth composed her prose romance "Urania" at the height of the Jacobean debates concerning the nature and status of women. Personal experiences, her own and those of her friends, had made Wroth very much aware of how little voice women had in determining htheirown destinies or even choosing their life partners.