Social convention may have prevented Renaissance women writers from openly taking part in the political and religious debates of their day, but they found varied and innovative ways of intervening indirectly.

Isabella Whitney explored issues of sexual morality and her sense of exclusion from the vibrantly greedy and commercial London of the 1570s. Mary Sidney, sister of Sir Philip, produced powerful translations of Petrarch and the Psalms as well as original verse in order to mourn her late brother, develop his legacy and promote the Protestant cause. Aemilia Lanyer, probably the most obviously 'feminist' of these three, wrote poetry which defends Eve's actions in the Garden of Eden, celebrates female virtue and spirituality, and argues for the creation of a non-hierarchical community of 'good women'. All are strong and original voices which decisively alter our picture of the golden age of English Literature.

This edition includes a critical introduction and explanatory notes

A collection of poems by the first English woman to publish secular poetry under her own name. Isabella Whitney (c. 1547–after 1624) was the first English woman to publish original secular poetry under her own name. She published two poetic miscellanies of poems: The Copy of a Letter (1567) and A Sweet Nosegay (1573), which include her own work as well as a total of six poems by five different male authors. This edition of her writings prints modernized texts of the complete miscellanies and adds to them six poems attributed to Whitney by largely twentieth-century critics. These poems provide a rich portrait of sixteenth-century female courtship and its dangers, a unique view of class and gender in Whitney’s lifetime, and a portrait of London as a burgeoning market of practical goods and luxury items from foodstuffs to imported silk.