Early Modern Women's Life-Writing and English Law

by Lotte Fikkers

Overview

Despite the plethora of early modern life-writing (diaries, (auto)biographies, memoirs), it remains difficult to reconstruct a picture of everyday female experience - as women chose to tell it - from this extant corpus. The vast majority of examples are penned by men; only a handful of texts by early modern women are immediately recognisable as autobiographies and diaries, such as Anne Clifford’s Diaries (1616-19) and Anne Halkett’s ‘True accountt’ (c. 1677/8). Moreover, the few examples we do have are not representative of women’s life stories in general, as there are no known diaries or autobiographies by women below the level of the middle ranks. Early Modern Women’s Life-Writing and English Law shows how legal records form an alternative type of life-writing, especially for women, and that thousands of lives are yet to be uncovered from the legal archives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399538138
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	04/30/2025
Series:	Edinburgh Critical Studies in Renaissance Culture
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Lotte Fikkers is Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher in the English Department at Leiden University. Her research sits at the intersection of early modern law and literature, with a particular interest in early modern women’s writing. Her postdoctoral work is part of the ERC Consolidator funded project FEATHERS, which investigates early modern collaboration and authorship.

Table of Contents

Notes and conventions
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Tracing early modern women’s lives
1. Constraints of the courtroom and its records
2. Courtship and marriage
3. Sex and slander
4. Widows
5. Afterlives: case studies in the production of alternative truths
Conclusion: Shared strategies in women’s self-representation

Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

This book is an incredibly detailed exploration of early modern women’s voices from a rich repository of primary sources. Drawing upon a wealth of material from early modern courts, it provides a depth of insight into women’s lived realities in the period, providing a unique opportunity to hear women speak about the experiences that shaped their lives.

Jessica Malay