Isabella Whitney is the earliest Englishwoman known to have written original secular poetry in English for publication. The Copy of a Letter contains four poems written in the personae of persons jilted in love. The only known copy of this volume is held at the Bodleian Library and is reproduced here. Whitney's second collection A Sweet Nosgay contains poetry in traditional stanzas and in prose format. Reproduced here is the unique copy held at the British Library. The French Historie by Anne Dowriche takes as its subject three events from the religious wars in France: the affair of the Rue St Jacques (1557); the Martyrdom of Annas Burgeus (1559) and the St Bartholomew's Massacre (1572). Her work takes as its source Thomas Tymme's The Three Partes of Commentaries, Containing the whole and perfect discourse of the Civill warres in Fraunce (1574). We reproduce here the fine copy of The French Historie held at the Huntington Library and also append two short poems thought to be hers. Ane Godlie Dreame, Compylit in Scottish Meter is Elizabeth Melville's first person account of a pilgrim who is guided through the afterworld. While many of the variations in the different editions are merely accidental, there are some substantial changes. As an aid to bibliographic study of the poem therefore, copies of the following four editions are reproduced here: 1603 National Library of Scotland; 1604 National Library of Scotland; 1606 Huntington Library; 1620 British Library. Aemilia Lanyer was the first woman writing in English to produce a substantial volume of poetry designed to be printed and to attract patrongage. The Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum was published in 1611 and contains a series of poems to individual patrons, two short prose dedications, a title poem on Christ's passion and the first country house poem printed in English. The volume is arguably the first genuinely feminist publication in England: all its dedicatees are women and the poem on the passion argu

The three series of Printed Writings (1500-1640, 1641-1700, and 1701-1750) provide a comprehensive, if not entirely complete, collection of separately published writings by women. In reprinting these writings it is intended to remedy one of the major obstacles to the advancement of feminist criticism of the early modern period, namely the unavailability of the very texts upon which the field is based. The volumes in the facsimile library reproduce carefully chosen copies of these texts, incorporating a short introduction providing an overview of the life and work of a writer along with a survey of important scholarship. Printed Writings 1500-1640, Series I, Part Four consists of five volumes of writings by early modern Englishwomen. The set comprises the following titles: Volume 1: Elizabeth Evelinge III Volume 2: Catherine Greenbury and Mary Percy Volume 3: Julian of Norwich; Marjorie Kempe and Juliana Berners Volume 4: Anne Campbell Volume 5: Anne Phoenix

Essential Works Series III, Part One consists of seven volumes of writings grouped by genre. The set comprises the following titles: Volume 1: Legal Treatises Volume 1 Volume 2: Legal Treatises Volume 2 Volume 3: Legal Treatises Volume 3 Volume 4: The Monument of Matrones Volume 1 (Lamps 1-3) Volume 5: The Monument of Matrones Volume 2 (Lamp 4) Volume 6: The Monument of Matrones Volume 3 (Lamps 5-7) Volume 7: Women and Murder in Early Modern News Pamphlets and Broadside Ballads, 1573-1697

The three series of Printed Writings (1500-1640, 1641-1700, and 1701-1750) provide a comprehensive, if not entirely complete, collection of separately published writings by women. In reprinting these writings it is intended to remedy one of the major obstacles to the advancement of feminist criticism of the early modern period, namely the unavailability of the very texts upon which the field is based. The volumes in the facsimile library reproduce carefully chosen copies of these texts, incorporating a short introduction providing an overview of the life and work of a writer along with a survey of important scholarship. Printed Writings 1641-1700, Series II, Part Two consists of nine volumes of writings grouped by genre. The set comprises the following titles: Volume 1: An Collins Volume 2: Alicia D'Anvers Volume 3: Eliza Volume 4: Amey Hayward Volume 5: Anne Killigrew Volume 6: Elizabeth Major Volume 7: Elizabeth Singer [Rowe] Volume 8: Ephelia Volume 9: Grace Norton [Gethin] and Frances (Freke) Norton

Printed Writings 1641-1700, Series II, Part One consists of seven volumes of writings grouped by genre. The set comprises the following titles: Volume 1: Life Writings I Volume 2: Life Writings II Volume 3: Mother's Advice Books Volume 4: Writings on Medicine Volume 5: Educational and Vocational Books Volume 6: Almanacs Volume 7: Miscellaneous Plays

Printed Writings 1500-1640, Series I, Part Three consists of five volumes of writings translated by early modern Englishwomen. The set comprises the following titles: Volume 1: Elizabeth Tyrwhit Volume 2: Judith Man Volume 3: Elizabeth Evelinge I Volume 4: Pudentiana Deacon Volume 5: Elizabeth Evelinge II

Printed Writings 1500-1640, Series I, Part Two consists of thirteen volumes of writings by and about early modern Englishwomen. The set comprises the following titles: Volume 1: Anne Cooke Bacon Volume 2: Brief Confessional Writings: Grey, Stubbes, Livingstone, Clarksone Volume 3: Eleanor Davies Volume 4: Early Tudor Translators: Margaret Beaufort, Margaret More Roper and Mary Basset Volume 5: Elizabeth and Mary Tudor Volume 6: Anne, Margaret and Jane Seymour Volume 7: Neo-Latin Women Writers: Elizabeth Jane Weston and Bathsua Reginald (Makin) Volume 8: Mother's Advice Books Volume 9: Jane Owen Volume 10: The Poets, I: Whitney, Dowriche, Melville (Colville), Lanyer, Speght and Primrose Volume 11: The Poets II: Mary Fage Volume 12: Protestant Translators: Anne Lock Prowse and Elizabeth Russell Volume 13: Recusant Translators: Elizabeth Cary and Alexia Grey

Early modern works of advice can be typified by a number of texts by Erasmus falling into a variety of categories: advice on family conduct; manners; study plans and piety. A close relation to these works of advice was the parental advice book, usually written by a father to his son. It was not until the early 17th century that the mother's advice book evolved and even then these were often legitimated by the female authors claiming that sickness, or even impending death, made relaying their motherly advice by a means other than print impossible. The contents of the present volume, ordered chronologically by the date of the first edition of each advice book, are limited to works attributed to named mothers, even though information about these historical women is not always abundant. Miscellanea was the attempt of Elizabeth Grymeston to distill advice to her only surviving. It was first published in 1604. The text reproduced here is the 1608 edition which was the first to include the additional substantive Prayers. Even though listings indicate there were 19 editions of The Mother's Blessing before 1640 very little is known of Dorothy Leigh. The first edition (1616), reproduced here, describes her as a gentle-woman, not long deceased and her dedicatory epistle to her three sons identifies her as a widow. Elizabeth Clinton wrote her advice book when she had become countess-dowager. It was dedicated to her daughter-in-law and addresses an area where she had apparently been deficient - the imperative directed at early modern women by domestic conduct books that mothers should nurse their own children. The edition reproduced here is the British Library copy. Elizabeth Brook Joceline composed her Legacy whilst awaiting the birth of her first child, having become convinced that she would die in childbirth. She died in 1622, nine days after the birth of a daughter. Possibly the most poignant of the mother's advice books, this was intended to stand in for her instructi

The dates of Mary Fage are not known, it is assumed however that she was flourishing around 1637. Fames Roule comprises a series of over 400 acrostic verses, each containing an anagram and each addressed to one of the noble and powerful of Caroline England. As such it constitutes a verbal salute to court culture. While they may not be of great literary value, her verses are an extreme example of the pervasive word play of her time, and their contents afford an extended glimpse at social construction of upperclass reality in Caroline England. Reproduced here is the copy held at the Huntington Library.

The discovery and re-examination of women authors has been a key part of early modern women's studies, but a major problem has been the inaccessibility of the texts themselves. This series is designed to make available a comprehensive collection of writing in English from 1500 to 1700, both by women and for and about them. Each text is preceded by a short introduction providing an overview of the life and work of the writer, along with a survey of important relevant scholarship. The series is in two parts, covering the periods 1500 to 1640, and 1641 to 1700. It is complemented by a separate facsimile series of essential works and original monographs.