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BOOK REVIEWS Seventeenth-Century Women: A Review of New Books Sharon Valiant New York Until recently, those wishing to learn about seventeenth-century women faced but a scattered assortment of books and journal articles, plus some published personal writings. In less than a decade, this unmined store has rapidly changed into the publishing version of a gold rush, with new studies and reprints now speeding through so quickly that only the dedicated can stay current. The selections for this review concentrate on some ofthe newest offerings, 1986 through 1989, plus an overlooked, but still available, set from 1974. APHRA BEHN Mary Ann O'Donnell. Aphra Behn: An Annotated Bibliography ofPrimary and Secondary Sources. New York: Garland Publishing, 1986. 557 p. The Uncollected Verse ofAphra Behn, edited by Germaine Greer. Stump Cross Books, 1989. 224 p. [Available from Stump Cross Books, Waiden Road, Stump Cross, Saffron Waiden, Essex, CBlO IRW England.] Most welcome to Restoration scholars is Mary Ann O'Donnell's Aphra Behn: An Annotated Bibliography ofPrimary and Secondary Sources, a work firmly establishing Behn's canon, while at the same time handing us the most concrete and reliable information we now have on this author. Those who have spent time with the elusive Madam Behn know the problems: a healthy population of ghost editions in a maze of confusing and questionable attributions. O'Donnell visited over twenty major research facilities in the United States and England to bring organization to this chaos. The results are impressive and this reference is destined to be one of those that, when not found in the bibliographies of new Behn research, will send a clear signal that the writer has not done his or her homework. Designed to accommodate textualists, editors, and rare book specialists, the primary bibliography contains 106 entries of works written, edited, or translated by Aphra Behn. The secondary bibliography cites, in chronological order, over 650 books, articles, and dissertations from 1666 to 1984. Eight appendices cover printers and booksellers, cross-references to Wing, a first line index to supersede the index in Montague Summers, The Works ofAphra Behn (1915), and other information. 235 236Rocky Mountain Review The first major publication to take advantage of O'Donnell is The Uncollected Verse ofAphra Behn, edited with introduction and notes by Germaine Greer. With the goal ofeventually producing an entire new edition ofBehn, Greer has begun by assembling all the poetry not included in the six-volume Summers edition, some of which has not been reprinted since Behn's lifetime. After an overview ofthe flawed Summers set, sixteen poems are reprinted, including those to Charles II, James ?, the newly born Prince ofWales, and to Queens Catherine and Mary II. Verses to Creech and Roger L'Estrange are also present, along with Behn's translations of "Aesop's Fables" and Cowley's "Of Plants, Sylva." All are accompanied by excellent notes. While there are some typographical errors, and Lady Anne Spencer was the daughter of the Earl of Sunderland, not the Earl of Cumberland (189), Greer has produced the long awaited first step toward a complete scholarly edition of Aphra Behn. COLLECTIONS/DICTIONARIES Women Writers ofthe Seventeenth Century, edited by Katharina M. Wilson and Frank J. Warnke. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989. 545 p. Kissing the Rod: An Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Women's Verse, edited by Germaine Greer, Susan Hastings, Jeslyn Medoff, and Melinda Sansone . New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1988. 477 p. A Dictionary ofBritish and American Women Writers, 1660-1800, edited by Janet Todd. Rev. ed. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1987. 344 p. British Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide, edited by Janet Todd. New York: Continuum, 1989. 762 p. To the growing list of studies on the early modern period can now be added Women Writers ofthe Seventeenth Century, edited by Katharina M. Wilson and the late Frank J. Warnke, a continuation ofthe earlier Medieval Women Writers (1984) and Women Writers ofthe Renaissance and Reformation (1987), both edited by Wilson. The newest volume features another impressive selection oftwenty writers from Europe and England and, as with the earlier volumes, contains a biography, a sampler of works, and bibliographies for each entry. Sverre Lyngstad's chapter, "Leonora Christina: The...

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