Reading Early Modern Women ─ An Anthology of Texts in Manuscript and Print, 1550-1700

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.

Helen Ostovich is Professor of English at McMaster University. She is editor of Ben Jonson's Every Man Out of His Humour and Ben Jonson: Four Comedies, and coeditor of Other Voices, Other Views: Expanding the Canon in English Renaissance Studies.

Elizabeth Sauer is Professor of Early Modern English Literature at Brock University. She currently holds a Chancellor's Research Chair. She is author of Barbarous Dissonance and Images of Voice in Milton's Epics, and coeditor of Imperialisms: Historical and Literary Investigations 1500-1900, Milton and the Imperial Vision, and Books and Readers in Early Modern England.