Reading, Gender and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England

Abstract

This ambitious and interdisciplinary book redraws the history of early modern Englishwomen’s reading, exploring the connections between gender, reading habits and genre throughout the seventeenth century. It challenges accepted historiographical narratives about reading that have privileged male experience and the impact of the Civil War, and highlights the multiplicity and complexity of women’s reading practices, focusing on the ways in which they used reading in constructing their gender identity. Reading was a gendered act in the early modern period; in reading certain genres, women were negotiating a range of gendered behavioural norms. From religious texts, romances and cookbooks, to news, scientific and medical treatises, and household records, this book draws on archival sources across a wide range of writing types to offer a more complete picture of women’s reading experiences, ultimately questioning the accepted notion of ‘the woman reader’ itself.