Poems by a Sixteenth-Century Gentlewoman, Maid, and Servant

Isabella Whitney author Shannon Miller editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Iter Press

Publishing:25th Nov '24

£40.00

This title is due to be published on 25th November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

Poems by a Sixteenth-Century Gentlewoman, Maid, and Servant cover

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.
 

"This edition of writings published by Isabella Whitney and poems attributed to her by later editors is so important to women's literary history that it is hard to believe it has not yet appeared. Whitney's poetry is intelligent, perceptive, witty, vibrant, and direct; it will be widely read and enjoyed by students and more advanced scholars interested in early modern women's literature, history, feminist and gender studies, as well as cultural studies more generally."

  -- Sara Jayne Steen, Former Professor of English and Dean of letters and Sciences at Montana State University and President Emerita of Plymouth State University in New Hampshire

ISBN: 9781649590916

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 16mm

Weight: 367g

220 pages