The Personal View

238Rocky Mountain Review tapestry. Aristocrats such as Lady Mary Wroth and the Duchess of Newcastle appear with "the Sole Empress in the Land of Wit" (261) who, of course, is the spirited Madam Behn. Then, there is Elizabeth Taylor, now identified as the "Mrs. Taylor" who published three poems in Behn's Miscellany (1685). Poet Anna Trapnel sold everything she owned to support the Parliamentarian army and agitated with the Fifth Monarchy Men, while Jane Barker wrote of surrendering her Muse to anatomy: "Fare well fare well, kind poetry my friend, / . . . Willis and Harvey bid me follow them. / . . . Come on, says Harvey, don't stand gazing here, / But follow me, and I thy doubts will clear, . . ." (363-64). Quaker Mary Mollineux not only wrote poetry, but was learned in Latin, Greek, medicine , and natural science. "A Lady of Honour" wrote verses to encourage the Scottish settlement of Panama. "To a Proud Beauty," by Ephelia, is reprinted, as is "To the Excellent Orinda," by the mysterious Philo-Philippa, along with excerpts from A Chaîne of Pearle by the unidentified Diana Primrose. Other voices include Rachel Speght, usually recalled for her early defense of women, and Anna Hume, who dedicated her translation ofPetrarch to Princess Elizabeth, Anna van Schurman's best friend. Altogether, fifty women were assembled and documented for this outstanding anthology. A Dictionary ofBritish and American Women Writers, 1660-1800, edited by Janet Todd, is now available in a revised, paperback edition. Many changes from the 1985 edition are typographical corrections—on the copy I have the type is somewhat darker in these areas, so they are easily spotted. The problems I found with the first edition are still present, however. There is a complete lack ofbibliographical support for each entry—what is the source ofthis information? The unevenness of the articles is also notable—the entries for Aphra Behn, Bathsua Makin, and the unknown Ephelia are close to the same length, but given Behn's long writing career it is reasonable to expect her entry would be significantly longer. We find out that Anne Finch, Viscountess Conway, wrote letters , but never that they have been published (Conway Letters: The Correspondence ofAnne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More, and their Friends, 1642-1684 [1930]); and people such as Martha Giffard, who wrote a biography of her brother Sir William Temple, are not cited at all. Janet Todd's newest project, British Women Writers, covers over four hundred literary figures from the Middle Ages through the present day—poets, essayists, novelists, travel writers, and historians. Over fifty entries from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries are presented, including such lesser known writers as Lady Anne Bacon, Grisell Baillie, Lady Eleanor Douglas, Penelope Aubin, and Jane Lead. The more famous are Margaret Fell, Lady Anne Clifford, Dorothy Osborne, Aphra Behn, Bathsua Makin, Mary Astell, Lady Mary Wroth, and Celia Fiennes. Each entry includes a list of selected works and a bibliography. THE PERSONAL VIEW Harriet Blodgett. Centuries of Female Days: Englishwomen's Private Diaries. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988. 332 p. Book Reviews239 Margaret George. Women in the First Capitalist Society: Experiences in Seventeenth-Century England. Urbana: University ofIllinois Press, 1988. 261 p. Gwenn Davis and Beverly A. Joyce. Personal Writings by Women to 1900: A Bibliography of American and British Writers. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. 294 p. A history of those intimate surveys of daily life, the diaries, is the subject of Centuries ofFemale Days. Reviewing nearly one hundred women's private accounts from the seventeenth through twentieth centuries, Harriet Blodgett offers a chance for comparison of attitudes toward marriage, motherhood, and work. The seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century women include Diana Astry, Anne Clifford, Mary Clavering Cowper, Elizabeth Freke, Margaret Hoby, Katherine Howard, and Isabella Twysden. Anne Clifford's diary entries from 1676, not included in Sackville-West's The Diary ofAnne Clifford, are reprinted. With an eye turned to the newly emerging bourgeoisie, Margaret George's Women in the First Capitalist Society examines seventeenth-century Englishwomen through their personal literature. The Puritan Lucy Hutchinson and the Catholic Elizabeth Cellier along with Elizabeth Freke, Alice Thornton, and Brilliana Harley all have self-contained chapters drawn from information in...