Early modern women
A Wild and Woolley Week
A guest post by the Before ‘Farm to Table’ team This week the Before ‘Farm to Table’: Early Modern Foodways and Cultures team turned their collective attention to Hannah Woolley (or Wolley), a British woman writer who was among the…
The First English Actresses
In 1660, women (rather than men) began playing female roles, including female Shakespearean roles, on the professional English stage. Learn more about these early actresses.
Lady Mary Wroth and 'The Countess of Montgomery's Urania'
Lady Mary Wroth watched Shakespeare act in his own plays, heard her relative Sir Walter Raleigh talk about founding Virginia, and almost certainly met Pocahantas and ambassadors from Morocco. Wroth’s later prose fiction echoes elements of her own life, including…
Studying early modern women—in Shakespeare's plays and in his time
By Esther Ferington The roles of early modern women in Shakespeare’s time—both the fictional characters in his plays and the real-life women of his era—have been central to many projects created by Georgianna Ziegler, Louis B. Thalheimer Associate Librarian and…
Women marking the text
“I beegan, to ourloke this Booke . . . .” These words are written by Lady Anne Clifford on the title page of her copy of John Selden’s Titles of Honor (1631), which is featured in the first case of…