Women and Epistolary Agency in Early Modern Culture, 1450–1690

James Daybell is Professor of early modern British history at Plymouth University, UK.Andrew Gordon is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Aberdeen, UK.

• Contents: Living letters: the subject and object of women’s correspondence, James Daybell and Andrew Gordon. Objects of Study: Constructing Women’s Letters: What they wrote: early Tudor aristocratic women, 1450-1550, Barbara J. Harris; By the queen: collaborative authorship in scribal correspondence of Queen Elizabeth I, Melanie Evans; The materiality of early modern women’s letters, James Daybell. Voices of Authority: Letters of Counsel and Advice: Women as counsellors in 16th-century England: the letters of Lady Anne Bacon and Lady Elizabeth Russell, Gemma Allen; The rhetoric of medical authority in Lady Katherine Ranelagh’s Letters, Michelle DiMeo; John Evelyn, Elizabeth Carey, and the trials of pious friendship, Cedric Brown; ‘Be plyeabell to all good Counsell’: Lady Brilliana Harley’s advice letter to her son, Johanna Harris Tyler. Networks and Negotiations: The Social Relations of Correspondence: Making friends with Elizabeth in the letters of Roger Ascham, Rachel McGregor; Irish women’s letters, 1641-1653, Marie-Louise Coolahan; Recovering agency in the epistolary traffic of Frances, Countess of Essex and Jane Daniell, Andrew Gordon; Quaker correspondence: religious identity and communication networks in the interregnum Atlantic world’, Marjon Ames. Postscript: New directions in early modern women’s letters: WEMLO’s challenges and possibilities, Kim McLean-Fiander and James Daybell; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

"Women and Epistolary Agency is a welcome contribution to the flourishing literature on early modern letter-writing. It sheds new light on the genderd dimensions of correspondence, and presents some novel paths for further exploration. The collection will be valuable reading for any scholar working on early modern women or letter-writing: scholars who will, no doubt, observe the continuing development of WEMLO project with keen interest." - Stephanie Thomson, University of Adelaide"Overall, this edited collection offers an excellent range of articles from different disciplines that focus on women from a variety of geographical, social, religious and professional backgrounds."- Helen Newsome, University of Sheffield, Journal of Historical Pragmatics