Reading Early Modern Women’s Writing by Paul Salzman (review)

240 unpublished poem by George Granville and in the sketch of her time in Beckley (near Oxford), there are tantalizing hints of her possible participation in manuscript circles. Given the political nature of the series , the biography naturally focuses on political readings of these texts and does not generally seek to locate its account in relation to recent literary studies of Manley’s writings. And there are a few stylistic issues. The need to speculate on alternatives when evidence is lacking sometimes occasions repetition. In turn this repetition often leads to a certain clunkiness of self-reference; phrases like ‘‘as will be discussed in the next section’’ and ‘‘as I have already explained ’’ recur at moments when readers might have been trusted to follow the narrative and argument. The typographical errors, though not rampant, are frequent and basic enough to jar. But significant and valuable biography brings together as much as can be known of Manley’s life and her political activities in a dynamic portrait. Marta Kvande Texas Tech University PAUL SALZMAN. Reading Early Modern Women’s Writing. Oxford: Oxford, 2006. Pp. 256. $125. The Introduction to Mr. Salzman’s Reading Early Modern Women’s Writing , which begins with the problem of categorizing women writers, establishes his theoretical framework. He engages in a kind of ‘‘feminist editorial intervention ’’; scholars must balance the material condition of women writers with the way that writing by women often involves identity performance. ‘‘How,’’ as he puts it, can we ‘‘steer between the Scylla of homogenizing transparently identifiable early modern women writers , and the Charybdis of deconstructed texts which call any identity into question ?’’ One can battle these monsters by adopting multiple, simultaneous literary strategies: to ‘‘give due deference to the heterogeneity of this writing, while at the same time analyzing how it was transmitted and received in a variety of ways.’’ He does not engage in literary criticism of the texts themselves, but looks at what women wrote from 1588– 1700 and how ‘‘that writing was read, processed, interpreted, rewritten, and often rediscovered.’’ Thus, he examines the production and dissemination of texts and the representation of women writers across several centuries, noting, for instance, the diminishing inclusion of women writers by canonmakers in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries , a literary history reflected in the first edition of the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women in 1985. Mr. Salzman initially surveys women ’s writing; succeeding chapters canvass ‘‘case studies’’ of writers from a range of social classes in order to sift through several centuries’ reception of writing. The first chapter, divided into two parts, treats ‘‘the nature’’ and ‘‘preservation’’ of women’s writing from 1558 to 1700, succinctly addressing translation, poetry, plays, correspondence , prophetical texts, prose meditations , spiritual autobiographies, midwifery manuals, and many other forms, alone and as part of personal or published anthologies, advice books, and other compendia. He discusses important shifts in writing during this era. For instance, although religious themes dominated women’s writing in the early seventeenth century, thematic focus and genre broadened. Women began to regard ‘‘themselves as writers in this pe- 241 riod’’; indeed, the Civil War and the Restoration opened up the literary field to them. Chapter 5 explores the surge in women’s writing that emerged out of movements inspired by the English Civil War. Writing by Quakers or charismatics (Anna Trapnel) illustrates how religious discourse authorized women’s writing and challenged gender conventions . Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century anthologies of women’s writing were shaped by their depiction of women as legitimate or illegitimate, reputable or disreputable, genteel or brazen. Communities of Restoration and eighteenthcentury writers influenced literary collections , which, in turn, served as an important intellectual inheritance for later readers and writers. Of particular interest to eighteenth century scholars is the closing chapter on Philips and Behn, in which Mr. Salzman thoroughly and engagingly traces their literary output and the critical responses to their work, with attention to recent criticism. He addresses Behn in the context of Restoration writers, (sexual) politics, and the travails of professional and literary selffashioning . Here Mr. Salzman’s scholarly apparatus especially succeeds because Behn is a chameleon. The book includes an extensive Bibliography of primary (manuscript and printed) and...