Early Modern Women's Letter Writing, 1450-1700 (review)

250 Short Notices additional material relating to the Gregorian Calendar. Elsewhere, the layout has been improved and various corrections and additions have been made. As a result, this new edition will be an even more essential tool for historians than the original, particularly for medieval and Early M o d e m research. Despite the existence of some of this material in electronic form, the Handbook is still the most convenient and comprehensive collection of this kind of information. Toby Burrows Scholars'Centre The University of Western Australia Day bell, James, ed., Early Modern Women's Letter Writing, 1450-1700, Houndsmill, Palgrave, 2001; cloth; pp. xiv, 213; R R P £47.50; ISBN 0333945794. James Daybell has brought together an impressive range of essays on women's letter writing at various social levels. Inevitably, there is a tendency to examine the large collections of letters from elite w o m e n and in the cases where just one or two letters survive their usefulness is limited. Roger Dalrymple considers the letters ofthe Paston women, Alison Truelove looks at the Stonors, and Jacqueline Eales comments on Lady Brilliana Harley. In some chapters, historians draw new riches from archives that they have worked on for some years. For example, Alison Wall unearths some strident letters from the Thynne family and Vivienne Larminiefindsa new angle on the Newdigates with the letters ofAnne Newdigate. Jennifer Ward, James Daybell, Rosemary O'Day, and Anne Laurence offer broader surveys but each of their individual essays deals with a different time period, thus giving the volume a good sense ofcoherence. Daybell's introduction and own essay are particularly insightful. I found the other three essays fascinating. Sara Jane Steen's dissection ofillness in Lady Arabella Stuart's letters gives a perceptive view by applying twenty-first century knowledge ofmedicine to Stuart's writings. Clare Walker astutely considers the communications ofnuns. Susan W h y m a n considers the particular category ofsingle women's writing from the extensive archive of the Vemey women. The sum of the essays is greater than the parts. Taken as a whole, the essays convincingly argue that w o m e n were active letter writers throughout this time period, and suggest that historians who argue that women's worlds only opened out through their letters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Short Notices 251 overstate their case. This book is also a highly successful interdisciplinary exercise. It will be necessary reading for medievalists and Early M o d e m historians as well as literature experts. Most significantly, it will be key reading for anyone who does extensive research on letters. The reader is left with no doubt about the rewarding and multi-faceted nature of correspondence as a source for writing about the past. Pamela Sharpe School ofHumanities, History The University of Western Australia Hadfield, Andrew, The English Renaissance: 1500-1620, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers, 2001; paper; pp. xxiii, 310; R R P US66.95 (cloth), US29.95 (paper); ISBN 0631220232 (cloth), 0631220240 (paper). This is a useful textbook which I would happily recommend to my students. It contains a wealth of accurate information, presented clearly and without overt hobbyhorses. Three incisive chapters develop a culturally pointed 'History of the English Renaissance', charting political and religious developments, the roots of colonialism in the period, and the notion of 'British Isles'. Then short biographies are given of some 40 writers, not neglecting w o m e n such as Elizabeth Cary, Mary Sidney Herbert, Aemilia Lanyer, and Isabella Whitney. Where, though, is Rachel Speight and Margaret Cavendish, for example, w h o might have edged out John Bale and Alexander Barclay? They m a y lie just outside Hadfield's terminal date, 1620, but this date m a y seem too early to incorporate what w e think of as 'the Renaissance'. There is a kind of egalitarianism in giving everybody two or three pages, though Hadfield clearly thinks some are in need of ampler space in order to find the critical attention they deserve - Skelton, for example. Sensible analyses of about 20 'Key Texts' follow, and there is a refreshing eclecticism about a list that includes A Mirror for Magistrates...