This landmark book of essays examines the development of women's letter writing from the late fifteenth to the early eighteen century. It is the first book to deal comprehensively with women's letter writing during the Late Medieval and Early Modern period and shows that this was a larger and more socially diversified area of female activity than has generally been assumed. The essays, contributed by many of the leading researchers active in the field, illustrate women's engagement in various activities, both literary and political, social and religious.

'...a valuable contribution to the fields of women's history, early modern British history, and the history of language...' - Carrie F. Klaus, Sixteenth Century Journal

Autorentext
ROGER DALRYMPLE Rosemary Woolf Lecturer in Medieval Literature, Somerville College, Oxford JACQUELINE EALES Reader, Canterbury Christ Church University College VIVIENNE LARMINIE Research Editor ANNE LAURENCE Senior Lecturer in History, Open University ROSEMARY O'DAY Professor of History and Director of the Charles Booth Centre, Open University SARA JAYNE STEEN Professor and Chair of English, Montana State University ALISON TRUELOVE Lecturer in Medieval Literature, Department of English, Royal Holloway, University of London CLAIRE WALKER Lecturer, Department of History, University of Newcastle ALISON WALL Lecturer in Modern History, Christ Church, Oxford JENNIFER C. WARD Senior Lecturer in History, Goldsmith's College, University of London SUSAN E. WHYMAN PhD, Princeton University

Inhalt
List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Introduction; J .Daybell Reaction, Consolation and Redress in the Letters of the Paston Women; R.Dalrymple Letter Writing by English Noblewomen in the Early Fifteenth Century; J.Ward Commanding Communications: The Fifteenth-Century Letters of the Stonor Women; A.Truelove Female Literary and the Social Conventions of Women's Letter Writing in England, 1540-1603; J.Daybell Deference and Defiance in Women's Letters of the Thynne Family; A.Wall Fighting for Family in a Patronage Society: The Epistolary Armoury of Anne Newdigate (1574-1618); V.Larminie 'How Subject to Interpretation': Lady Arbella Stuart and the Reading of Illness; S.J.Steen Tudor and Stuart Women: Their Family Lives Through Their Letters; R.O'Day Patriarchy, Puritanism and Politics: The Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley (1598-1643); J.Eales 'Doe not supose me a well mortifyed Nun dead to the world': Letter Writing in Early Modern English Convents; C.Walker Gentle Companions: Single Women and Their Letters in Late-Stuart England; S.Whyman 'Begging Pardon for all mistakes and errors in this writing I being a women and doing it myself': Family Narratives in Some Early Eighteenth-Century Letters; A.Laurence Notes and References Index