Women's Letters Across Europe, 1400 - 1700—Form And Persuasion

Those who maintain that women spent this portion of their history powerless and stupid should read the letters of the involved, forceful, authoritative and extremely capable women described in these 16 essays. Contributors describe how literate women were patrons of ideas as well as people as they wrote persuasively for personal and family goals, such as in letters to children, Collonello's letters to Michelangelo, and letters across Italian-German borders, public and private discourse such as privacy and the social practices of reading women's letters and the writings of queens, and persuasive writing in the name of religion, as in St. Teresa's letters to her prioresses and Schurman's letters on women's education. The editor provides a selected general bibliography. Annotation c2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jane Couchman is Associate Professor of French, Humanities and Women's Studies at Glendon College, York University (Toronto). She has published articles and book chapters on the letters of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Huguenot women: Louise de Coligny, Catherine de Bourbon, Charlotte de Bourbon-Montpensier and ElAconore de Roye. Ann Crabb (History, James Madison University) is the author of The Strozzi of Florence: Widowhood and Family Solidarity in the Renaissance (University of Michigan Press, 2000). Her current research deals with the correspondence of Margherita Datini (1360a€“1418) and her circle in Prato and Florence, investigating both the form and the content of the letters.