WOMEN ADVISING WOMEN
Advice Books, Manuals and Journals for Women, 1450-1837

Part 5: Women's Writing and Advice, 1450-1700

Manuscripts of Medieval Women Writers are an important feature of this part. We include the Fables (c1250) of Marie de France, and Le Livre de fais d’armes des Chevalrie and Livre des trois vertues (c1450) of Christine de Pisan. We also feature a holograph translation by Princess Elizabeth of Le Miroir de l’ame pecheresse (c1575) by Margueritte de Navarre and the Heptameron (1654).

Women also earned literary respect as translators of instructive texts and we include a selection of key works translated by Margaret of Richmond, Mary Herbert, and Agnes More.

Rare ephemeral broadsides and ballads from the Douce Collection provide a rich source for social history and help to establish sexual stereotypes. There are over 800 items describing nags, cuckolds, helpmeets and harridans.

Prophetic and religious writing was another major forum for women in this period. Julian of Norwich experienced a series of visions in 1373 which she recorded in XVI Revelations of Divine Love. This was still in print in 1670, as can be seen by our edition. For the 16th century we include Gertrude More’s - Spiritual Exercises (1554), and for the 17th century we have over 20 works by Lady Eleanor Douglas, Mary Rande (Mary Cary), and Margaret Fell.

The state of knowledge concerning Child-birth and Child-rearing is admirably shown by three works in this fifth part. Jacob Rueff’s De conceptu et generatione hominis (1554) is copiously illustrated and shows both the child in the womb and the many instruments used to deliver it. Over 100 years later, Nicholas Culpeper’s A directory for midwives (1675 & 2nd Part 1676) became the standard vernacular text for practitioners. Breast-feeding is the focus of The Countess of Lincoln’s Nursery (1622).

Over twenty volumes of Advice Books for Women are covered, including the highly influential Country contentments (1623) and The English house-wife (1688) by Gervase Markham. Together with Roger Carr’s A Godly forme of householde Government (1600), these established a format for household manuals which was much copied. Other items include The Mother’s Blessing (1616) by Dorothy Leigh and The lawe’s resolution of women’s rights (1632).

We also include a number of lively Pamphlet Disputes such as:
John Sprint’s The Bride-Womans Counsellor and Mary Chudleigh’s replies - The Female Advocate (1700) and The Ladies Defence (1701); John Dunton’s Petticoat Government (1702) and its reply The Prerogative of the Breeches (1702); Joseph Swetnam’s Arraignment of Lewde, idle froward, and unconstant women (1615 and 1733 editions) and counterblasts by Constantia Munda, Rachel Speght, Ester Sowernam, and anon (1617-20); and Mary Evelyn’s Mundus muliebris (1690) and its reply Mundus foppensis (1691);.

There are fewer advice books for women for the medieval and early modern period than for the 18th and 19th centuries. As such, we have decided to include a broad range of Literary Texts by Women Writers, 1567-1737. These do reveal much about the lives and expectations of women and highlight the shifts in their role in society.

Early writers covered include Isabella Whitney (the first Englishwoman to publish a book of poems), Elizabeth Grymeston, Aemilia Lanyer (sometimes identified as Shakespeare’s Dark Lady), Francis Southwell,
Lady Mary Wroth - (the first woman to write a full length prose fiction - The Countesse of Montgomerie’s Urania, 1621), Elizabeth Cary and Anna Weamys.

For Margaret Cavendish we reproduce 11 key works, 1653-68, enabling scholars to analyse her work in detail. These are: Poems & Phancies, Philosophical fancies, Philosophical & physical opinions, The World’s Olio, Nature’s Pictures drawn by fancies pencil to the life, Playes, Orations of divers sorts, CCXI Sociable Letters, The Life of William Cavendish, Grounds of Natural Philosophy, and Observations upon experimental philosophy (featuring the New Blazing World).

The influence of French women writers in translation is made evident by the inclusion of 11 works by Comtesse de la Fayette and Madeleine de Scudery, including A triumphant arch erected and consecrated to the glory of the feminine sexe and The Female Orators.

We also offer rare first editions of over 45 plays, poems, memoirs and novels by Aphra Behn, Mary Chudleigh, Delarivier Manley and Susanna Centilevre. These show how important women writers were in British theatre between 1670 and 1737, and the central role that they played in the development of the novel.

Memorials to Women make up another interesting category of material included here. They often feature brief biographies and original writings by women. We include eight volumes devoted to the memories of Anne Askew, Margueritte de Valois, Mary, Countess of Warwick, Katherine Clark and others.