Annotated bibliography of readings related to Shakespeare's Sisters

This article is related to the exhibition. For other uses, see Shakespeare's Sisters (disambiguation).

The following list is not meant to be comprehensive but to provide at least one modern edition and one fairly recent biography for each author, when such is available. In many cases, modern editions of the works contain good biographical introductions. Though there are many excellent works in other languages, this list focuses on books in English for purposes of accessibility.

Sources related to individual women

Tullia d'Aragona (ca. 1510-1556)

Sweet Fire: Tullia D'Aragona's Poetry of Dialogue and Selected Prose, trans. and ed., Elizabeth A. Pallitto (Braziller, 2006)

Folger Call Number: PQ4562. A9 A2 2006

Mary Astell (1666-1731)

Serious Proposal to the Ladies: Parts I and II, ed. Patricia Springborg (Broadview Press, 2002)

Folger Call Number: HQ1596 .A87 2002

Perry, Ruth. The Celebrated Mary Astell: an Early English Feminist (U of Chicago Press, 1986)

Folger Call Number: HQ1595.A7 P4

Laura Battiferri (1523-1589)

Laura Battiferri and Her Literary Circle, ed. and trans. Victoria Kirkham (University of Chicago Press, 2006)

Folger Call Number: PQ4607.B6 A24 2006

Aphra Behn (1640-1689)

Oroonoko, the Rover, and Other Works, ed. Janet Todd (Penguin Classics 1992)

Folger Call Number: PR3317 .A13 1992

Todd, Janet. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn (Andre Deutsch, 1996)

Folger Call Number: PR3317.Z5 T63 1996

Lady Elizabeth Cary (1585-1693)

Life and Letters, ed. Heather Wolfe (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001)

Folger Call Number: PR2499.F3 Z48 2001

Tragedy of Mariam: the fair queen of Jewry, ed. Karin Britland (Methuen, 2010)

Folger Call Number: PR2499.F3 T7 2010

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1624?-1674)

Convent of Pleasure and other Plays, ed. Anne Shaver (Johns Hopkins UP, 1999)

Folger Call Number: PR3605.N2 A6 1999

Paper Bodies: a Margaret Cavendish Reader, ed. Sylvia Bowerbank and Sara Mendelson (Broadview, 2000)

Folger Call Number: PR3605.N2 A6 2000

Political Writings, ed. Susan James (Cambridge UP, 2003)

Folger Call Number: PR3605.N2 A6 2003

Whitaker, Katie. Mad Madge; the extraordinary life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, the first woman to live by her pen (Basic Books, 2002)

Folger Call Number: PR3605.N2 Z95 2002

Susannah Centlivre (1667?-1723)

Miscellaneous Plays, intro. Stephanie Hodgson-Wright (Ashgate, 2000)

Folger Call Number: PR1127 .E37 2001 pt.1, v.7

The Basset Table, :ed. Jane Milling (Broadview Press, 2009)

Folger Call Number: PR3339.C6 B38 2009

Lady Anne Clifford (1590-1676)

Memoir of 1603 and The Diary of 1616-1619, ed. Katherine Acheson (Broadview Editions, 2007)

Folger Call Number: DA378.P4 A3 2007

Spence, Richard T. Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery (1590-1676) (Sutton, 1997)

Folger Call Number: DA378.P4 S64 1997

Victoria Colonna (1492-1547)

Sonnets for Michelangelo: a bilingual edition, ed. and trans. Abigail Brundin (U of Chicago Press, 2005)

Folger Call Number: PQ4620 .A24 2005

Brundin, Abigail. Vittoria Colonna and the Spiritual Poetics of the Italian Reformation (Ashgate, 2008)

Folger Call Number: PQ4620 .B78 2008

Madeleine (1520-1587) and Catherine Des Roches (1542-1587)

From Mother and Daughter: Poems, dialogues, and Letters of Les Dames Des Roches, ed. and trans. Anne R. Larsen (U of Chicago Press, 2006)

Folger Call Number: PQ1609.D49 A6 2006

Tarte, Kendall B. Writing Places: Sixteenth-Century City Culture and the Des Roches Salon (U of Delaware Press, 2007)

Folger Call Number: PQ1609.D49 T37 2007

Eleanor Davies Douglas (1590-1652)

Eleanor Davies, writings 1641-1646, selected and introduced by Teresa Feroli (Ashgate, 2001)

Folger Call Number: BF1815.D68 F47 2011

Cope, Esther S. Handmaid of the Holy Spirit: Dame Eleanor Davies (U of Michigan Press, 1992)

Folger Call Number DA378.D7 D6

Margaret Fell (1614-1702)

Women’s Speaking Justified (1667), ed. David J. Latt (William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, U of California, 1979)

Folger Call Number: BX7732.A1 L2

Kunze, Bonnely Young. Margaret Fell and the Rise of Quakerism (Stanford U Press, 1994)

Anne Finch, countess of Winchilsea (1661-1720)

The Anne Finch Wellesley Manuscript Poems, ed. Barbara McGovern and Charles H. Hinnant (U of Georgia Press, 1998)

Folger Call Number: PR3765.W57 A6 1998

Selected Poems, ed. Katharine M. Rogers (Ungar, 1979)

Folger Call Number: PR3765.W57 A13 1979

McGovern, Barbara. Anne Finch and her Poetry: a Critical Biography (U of Georgia Press, 1992)

Folger Call Number: PR3765.W57 Y5

Moderata Fonte (1555-1592)

Floridoro: a Chivalric Romance, ed. Valeria Finucci; trans. Julia Kisacky (U of Chicago Press, 2006)

Folger Call Number: PQ4623.F36 F5613 2006

Veronica Franco (1546-1591)

Poems and Selected Letters, ed. and trans. Ann Rosalind Jones and Margaret F. Rosenthal (U of Chicago Press, 1998)

Folger Call Number: PQ4623.F6 A613 1998

Rosenthal, Margaret F. The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco, Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice (U of Chicago Press, 1992)

Folger Call Number: PQ4623.F6 Y7

Esther Inglis (1571-1624)

View reproductions of some of her manuscripts on Luna.

Yeo, Elspeth. "Inglis [married name Kello], Esther (1570/1-1624), Calligrapher." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2007.

Folger Call Number:

Ziegler, Georgianna. "'More than Feminine Boldness': The Gift Books of Esther Inglis." In Women, Writing, and the Reproduction of Culture in Tudor and Stuart Britain. Ed. Mary E. Burke, Jane Donawerth, Linda L. Dove, and Karen Nelson. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 2000.19-37.

Folger Call Number: PR428.F45 W66 2000

Louise Labé (1526?-1566)

Complete Poetry and Prose: a bilingual edition, ed. and trans. Deborah Lesko Baker, poetry trans. Annie Finch (U of Chicago Press, 2006)

Folger Call Number: PQ1628.L2 A23 2006

Cameron, Keith. Louise Labé: Renaissance Poet and Feminist (St. Martin’s, 1990)

Folger Call Number: PQ1628.L2 Y23

Madame de La Fayette (1634-1693)

Princess of Clèves, ed. and trans. John D. Lyons (W.W. Norton, 1994)

Folger Call Number: PQ1805.L5 A7 1994

The Princesse de Cleves; The Princesse de Montpensier; The Comtesse de Tendre, trans. Terence Cave (Oxford UP, 1992)

Folger Call Number:

Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645)

Poems of Aemilia Lanyer: Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, ed Susanne Woods (Oxford UP, 1993)

Folger Call Number: PR2296.L15 S3 1993

Aemilia Lanyer: Gender, Genre, and the Canon, ed. Marshall Grossman (U of Kentucky Press, 1998)

Folger Call Number: PR2296.L27 Z56 1998

Hortense Mancini (1646-1699) and Marie Mancini (1639-1715?)

Memoirs: Hortense Mancini and Marie Mancini, ed. Sarah Nelson (U of Chicago Press, 2008)

Folger Call Number:

Mallet-Joris, Françoise. The Uncompromising Heart; a Life of Marie Mancini, Louis XIV’s First Love (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966)

Folger Call Number:

Rosvall, Toivo David. The Mazarine Legacy: the Life of Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin (Viking Press, 1969)

Folger Call Number:

Delarivière Manley (1663-1724)

Delarivier Manley, selelcted and intro. Stephanie Hodgson-Wright (Ashgate, 2006)

Folger Call Number: PR3545.M8 A6 2006

Carnell, Rachel. A Political Biography of Delarivier Manley (Pickering & Chatto, 2008)

Folger Call Number: PR3545.M8 Z53 2008

Clark, Constance. Three Augustan Women Playwrights (P. Lang, 1986) Source also includes Pix and Trotter.

Folger Call Number: PR714.W6 C5

Lucrezia Marinella (1571-1653)

Enrico, or, Byzantium Conquered: a Heroic Poem, ed. and trans. Maria Galli Stampino (U of Chicago, 2009)

Folger Call Number: PQ4627.M84 E5713 2009

Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Defects and Vices of Men, ed. and trans. Anne Dunhill; intro. Letizia Panizza (U of Chicago Press, 1999)

Folger Call Number: HQ1148 .M27 1999

Bathsua Makin (16000-ca. 1675)

Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen, intro. Paula L. Barbour (William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA, 1980)

Folger Call Number: LC1421 .M2 1980

Teague, Frances. Bathsua Makin, Woman of Learning (Associated University Presses, 1998)

Folger Call Number: LA2375.G72 M357 1998

Georgette de Montenay (1540-ca. 1581)

Reynolds-Cornell, Régine. Witnessing an Era: Georgette de Montenay and the Emblemes ou devises chrestiennes (Summa Publications, 1987)

Folger Call Number: PN6349.M65E6 R4

Anne-Marie-Louise Montpensier, duchesse d'Orléans (1627-1693)

Against Marriage: the Correspondence of la Grande Mademoiselle, ed. and trans. Joan DeJean (U of Chicago Press, 2002)

Folger Call Number: DC130.M8 A4 2002

Pitts, Vincent J. La Grande Mademoiselle at the Court of France: 1627-1693 (Johns Hopkins UP, 2000)

Folger Call Number: DC130.M8 P58 2000

Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549)

Selected Writings: a bilingual edition, ed. and trans. Rouben Cholakian and Mary Skemp (U of Chicago Press, 2008)

Folger Call Number: PQ1631 .A23 2008

Cholakian, Patricia and Rouben Cholakian, Marguerite de Navarre: Mother of the Renaissance (Columbia UP, 2006)

Folger Call Number: DC112.M2 C56 2006

Katherine Parr (1512-1548)

Complete Works and Correspondence, ed. Janel Mueller (U of Chicago Press, 2011)

Folger Call Number: DA333.P3 A2 2011

Porter, Linda. Katherine the Queen: the Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr (Macmillan, 2010)

Folger Call Number: DA333.P3 P67 2010

Katherine Philips (1632-1664)

Poems (1667)...; a facsimile reproduction, intro. Travis DuPriest (Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints 1992)

Folger Call Number: PR3619.P4 P6 1992

Katherine Philips...:Printed Letters 1697-1729, ed. Paula Loscocco, et al (Ashgate, 2007)

Folger Call Number:

Souers, Philip Webster. The Matchless Orinda (Harvard UP, 1966; 1931)

Folger Call Number: PR3619.P4 S6

Christine de Pisan (ca. 1364-ca. 1431)

The City of Ladies, trans. Rosalind Brown-Grant (Penguin Books, 2006)

Folger Call Number:

Margolis, Nadia. An Introduction to Christine de Pisan (U Press of Florida, 2011)

Folger Call Number: PQ1575.Z5 M27 2011

Willard, Charity Cannon. Christine de Pizan: Her Life and Works (Persea Books, 1984)

Folger Call Number: PQ1575.Z5 W5

Mary Pix (ca. 1666-1709)

The Plays of Mary Pix and Catharine Trotter, ed Edna L. Steeves (Garland, 1982)

Folger Call Number:

Clark, Constance. Three Augustan Women Playwrights (P. Lang, 1986) Source also includes Manley and Trotter.

Folger Call Number: PR714.W6 C5

Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962)

All Passion Spent, ed. Joanna Lumley (Little Brown, 1983)

Folger Call Number:

Glendinning, Victoria. Vita: the Life of V. Sackville-West (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983)

Folger Call Number:

Margherita Sarrocchi (ca. 1560-1617)

Scanderbeide: the Heroic Deeds of George Scanderberg, King of Epirus, ed. and trans. Rinaldina Russell (U of Chicago Press, 2006)

Folger Call Number: PQ4634.S163 S3313 2006

Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678)

Whether a Christian Woman should be Educated and other writings from her intellectual circle, ed. and trans. Joyce L. Irwin (U of Chicago Press, 1998)

Folger Call Number: BT704 .S3813 1998

Choosing the Better Part: Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678), ed. Mirjam de Baar et all - trans. from the Dutch (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996)

Folger Call Number: PT5679.S48 Z5413 1995

Madeleine de Scudéry (1607-1701)

Selected Letters, Orations, and Rhetorical Dialogues, ed. and trans. Jane Donawerth and Julie Strongson (U of Chicago Press, 2004)

Folger Call Number: PQ1922 .A1 2004

Aronson, Nicole. Mademoiselle de Scudéry, trans. Stuart R. Aronson (Twayne, 1978)

Folger Call Number: PQ1922.Z5 A83

Madame de Sévigné (1626-1696)

Farrell, Michele Longino. Performing Motherhood: the Sévigné Correspondence (U Press of New England, 1991)

Folger Call Number: PQ1925 .F3

Ojala, Jeanne A. and William T. Ojala. Madame de Sévigné: A Seventeenth-Century Life (St. Martin's Press, 1990)

Folger Call Number:

Mary Sidney (1561-1621)

Selected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, ed. Margaret P. Hannay, Noel J. Kinnamon, and Michael G. Brennan (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005)

Folger Call Number: PR2329.P2 A6 2005

The Sidney Psalter: the Psalms of Sir Philip and Mary Sidney, ed. Hannibal Hamlin and Michael G. Brennan (Oxford World's Classics, 2009)

Folger Call Number:

Hannay, Margaret P. Philips' Phoenix: Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (Oxford UP, 1990)

Folger Call Number: PR2329.P2 Y35

Lady Anne Southwell (1573-1636)

The Southwell-Sibthorpe Commonplace Book: Folger MS. V.b. 198, ed. Jean Klene (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1997)

Folger Call Number: PR2349.S49 A6 1997

Gaspara Stampa (ca. 1523-ca. 1554)

Complete Poems, ed. Troy Tower and Jane Tylus; trans. by Tylus (University of Chicago Press, 2010)

Folger Call Number: PQ4634 .S6513 2010

Catharine Trotter (1674?-1749)

Catharine Trotter's The Adventures of a Young Lady and Other Works, selected and intro., Anne Kelley (Ashgate, 2006)

Folger Call Number: PR3349.C4 A6 2006

Clark, Constance. Three Augustan Women Playwrights (P. Lang, 1986) Source also includes Manley and Pix.

Folger Call Number: PR714.W6 C5

Anna Weamys (b. ca. 1630)

Anna Weamys, selected and intro. Marea Mitchell (Ashgate, 2005)

Folger Call Number: PR3763.W25 C66 2005

Continuation of Sir Philip Sideny's 'Arcadia' by Anna Weamys', ed. Patrick C. Cullen (Oxford UP, 1994)

Folger Call Number: PR3763.W232 C66 1994

Elizabeth Jane Weston (1582-1612)

Collected Writings, ed. and trans. Donald Cheney and Brenda M. Hosington (U of Toronto Press, 2000)

Folger Call Number: PA8595 W454 A114 2000

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

A Room of One's Own, and Three Guineas (Oxford World Classics, 2008)

Folger Call Number:

Lee, Hermione. Virginia Woolf (Vintage, 1999)

Folger Call Number:

Hannah Woolley (fl. 1670)

Gentlewoman's Companion, or, a Guide to the Female Sex: the complete text of 1675, intro. Caterina Albano (Prospect Books, 2001)

Folger Call Number: BJ1609 .W66 2001

Lady Mary Wroth (ca. 1586-ca. 1640)

Mary Wroth: the Countess of Montgomer's Urania (Abridged), ed. Mary Ellen Lamb (Medieval and Renaissance Texts for Teaching, 2011)

Folger Call Number:

Hannay, Margaret P. Mary Sidney, Lady Wroth (Ashgate, 2010)

Folger Call Number: PR2399.W7 Z7 2010

Anthologies and background

Again, the following list is not comprehensive but is meant to lead the interested reader to some of the many general resources in the area of early women writers. The list focuses on anthologies and on general background rather than critical studies, of which there are many excellent ones.

The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women's Writing, ed. Laura L. Knoppers (Cambridge UP, 2009)

Folger Call Number: PR113 .C36 2009

Cox, Virginia. Women's Writing in Italy, 1400-1650 (Johns Hopkins UP, 2008)

Folger Call Number: PQ4063 .C69 2008

Early Modern Women's Writing: An Anthology 1560-1700, ed. Paul Salzman (Oxford World's Classics 2008)

Folger Call Number:

Eighteenth-Century Women Dramatists, ed. Melinda Fingerg (Oxford World's Classics, 2008)

Folger Call Number:

Isabella Whitney, Mary Sidney, and Aemilia Lanyer, ed. Danielle Clarke (Penguin Books, 2000)

Folger Call Number: PR1207 .I83 2000

Jaffe, Irma B. and Gernando Colombardo. Shining Eyes, Cruel Fortune: the Lives and Loves of Italian Renaissance Women Poets (Fordham UP, 2002), includes translations and a CD

Folger Call Number: PQ4063 .J34 2002

Panizza, Letizia and Sharon Wood. A History of Women's Writing in Italy (Cambridge UP, 2001)

Folger Call Number:

Renaissance Drama by Women: Texts and Documents, ed. S.P. Cerasano and Marion Wynne-Davies (Routledge, 1996)

Folger Call Number: PR1263 .R46 1996

Staves, Susan. A Literary History of Women's Writing in Britain, 1660-1789) (Cambridge UP, 2006)

Folger Call Number: PR113 .S73 2006

Stephens, Sonya. A Histroy of Women's Writing in France (Cambridge UP, 2000)

Folger Call Number:

Teaching Tudor and Stuart Women Writers, ed. Susanne Woods and Margaret P. Hannay (Modern Language Association, 2000)

Folger Call Number: PR113 .T43 2000

Wiesner, Merry E. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2007)

Folger Call Number: HQ1587 .W5

Women and Literature in Britain 1500-1700, ed. Helen Wilcox (Cambridge UP, 1996)

Folger Call Number: PR113 .W582 1996

Women Poets of the Italian Renaissance: Courtly Ladies and Courtesans, ed. Laura Anna Stortoni (Italica Press, 2008)

Folger Call Number: PQ4225.E8 S838 1997

Women Poets of the Renaissance, selected and ed. Marion Wynne-Davies (J.M. Dent, 1998)

Folger Call Number: PR1177 .W653 1998

Women Writers in Pre-Revolutionary France: Strategies of Emancipation, ed. Collette H. Winn and Donna Kuizenga (Routledge, 1997)

Folger Call Number: PQ149 .W64 1997

Women Writers in Renaissance England: an Annotated Anthology, ed. Randall Martin (Longman's, 1997)

Folger Call Number: PR1110.W6 W66 1997