In a study that explodes the assumption that early modern comic culture was created by men for men, Pamela Allen Brown shows that jest books, plays, and ballads represented women as laugh-getters an
Women were never members of professional troupes in early modern England, but literature and drama scholars here show that the royal, aristocratic, common, and foreign women on stage were not exceptio
Offering evidence of women's extensive contributions to the theatrical landscape, this volume sharply challenges the assumption that the stage was 'all male' in early modern England. The editors and c