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'Grossly Material Things'
Women and Book Production in Early Modern England
Helen Smith
272 pages
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7 black-and-white halftones
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216x138mm
978-0-19-965158-0
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Hardback
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03 May 2012
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- This is the only comprehensive study of women's roles in writing, making, and using early modern books
- An interdisciplinary work drawing on the insights of literary criticism, historical study, art history, musicology, and anthropology
- A wide-ranging work that explores a variety of literary, political, and religious texts, from broadside ballads to plays, monstrous birth pamphlets to editions of the Bible
- Expands both women's literary history and the history of the book
In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf described fictions as 'grossly material things', rooted in their physical and economic contexts. This book takes Woolf's brief hint as its starting point, asking who made the books of the English Renaissance, and what the material circumstances were in which they did so. It charts a new history of making and use, recovering the ways in which women shaped and altered the books of this crucial period, as co-authors, editors, translators, patrons, printers, booksellers, and readers.
Drawing on evidence from a wide range of sources, including court records, letters, diaries, medical texts, and
the books themselves, 'Grossly Material Things' moves between the realms of manuscript and print, and tells the stories of literary, political, and religious texts from broadside ballads to plays, monstrous birth pamphlets to editions of the Bible. In uncovering the neglected history of women's textual labours, and the places and spaces in which women went about the business of making, Helen Smith offers a new perspective on the history of books and reading. Where Woolf believed that Shakespeare's sister, had she existed, would have had no opportunity to pursue a literary career, 'Grossly Material Things' paints a compelling picture of Judith Shakespeare's varied job prospects, and promises to reshape our understanding of gendered authorship in the English
Renaissance.Readership: Students and scholars of early modern literature and the history of the book
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Helen Smith, Lecturer in Early Modern Literature, University of York Helen Smith is Lecturer in Renaissance Literature at the University of York. She has published widely on the history of books and reading, and is co-editor (with Louise Wilson) of Renaissance Paratexts (Cambridge, 2011). She is Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded project, 'Conversion Narratives in Early Modern Europe'.
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"brings a wealth of new insights to the field of book history" - Alice Eardley, Journal of the Northern Renaissance "Smith's emphasis on materiality certainly alerts us to some tantalizing glimpses of the place of women in both printing houses and Stationers' Hall." - Maureen Bell, Times Literary Supplement
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List of abbreviations
List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note to the reader
Introduction: 'Grossly Material Things'
1: 'Pen'd with double art': Women at the Scene of Writing
2: 'A dame, an owner, a defendresse': Women, Patronage, and Print
3: 'A free Stationers wife of this companye': Women and the Stationers
4: 'Certaine women brokers and peddlers': Beyond the London Book Trades
5: 'No deformitie can abide before the sunne': Imagining Early Modern Women's Reading
Bibliography of Works Cited
Index
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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