Conduct Literature for Women, Part I, 1500–1640
General Editors: William St Clair and Irmgard Maassen
Conduct Literature for Women
978 1 85196 526 7: 234x156mm: £495.00/$875.00
Availability: Japan: Kinokuniya
The first set in this highly successful series draws upon the guidance literature for women produced during the beginning of the early modern period. Within the texts can be found advice on conduct in almost every aspect of female life. The Puritan ideals of virtue and piety underpin these writings, which describe feminine models of chastity, modesty and submission and emphasise the sense of religious and domestic duty which lay behind the broader social expectations of women.
Contents
Volume 1
Richard Hyrde Preface to Margaret Roper’s translation of Erasmus (1524); Vives, Instruction of a Christen Woman (1541); plus Hyrde, Preface from 1529 edition; Vives, Office and Duty of an Husband (1550)
Volume 2
Bullinger, Book of Christen Matrimony (1540); plus Becon foreword (1541); Thomas Elyot, Defence of Good Women (1545); Thomas Becon, Catechisme(1565)
Volume 3
Philip Stubbes, Christal Glasse for Christian Women (1591); John Dod and Richard Cleaver, Godly Form of Household Governement (1598)
Volume 4
Robert Greene, Penelope’s Web (1587); Nicholas Breton, In Praise of Vertuous Ladies (1597); Robert Snawsel, Looking Glass for maryed Folkes(1610); Barnabe Rich Ladies’ Looking Glass (1616); Barnabe Rich, Excellency of Good Women; Patrick Hannay ‘A happy Husband’ (1618)
Volume 5
Thomas Salter, Mirrhor of Modestie (1579); William Gouge Domesticall Duties (1622); William Whateley Bride-Bush (1623) (extracts); Elizabeth Joceline, Mother’s Legacy
Volume 6
M R, Mother’s Counsell, or Live within Compass (1631); Nicholas Caussin, The Holy Court (1631); Richard Braithwait, The English Gentlewoman and other pieces (1631); Humfrey Crouch, ‘Kinde Husbande’s Advice to his Wife’ (1637)
Reviews
‘a precious resource, libraries would do well to add this six-volume work to their expanding collections of feminist and women’s history texts…. Editors St.Clair and Maassen and the publisher Pickering & Chatto have made a potentially rugged sea of information perfectly navigable.’
– AmiJo Comeford, Ben Jonson Journal