Early modern women's writing

"Between 1560 and 1700 women writers produced not only plays, but also poems, fiction, letters, diaries, tracts, treatises, polemic, and prophecy. The collection begins with the poetry of Isabella Whitney, who worked in a gentlewoman's household in London in the late 1560s, and ends with the drama, prose, and verse of Aphra Behn, who was employed as a spy in Amersterdam by Charles II. The twelve women writers included here represent all classes and opinions, from aristocrats such as Mary Wroth, Anne Clifford, and Margaret Cavendish to women of obscure background caught up in the religious ferment of the mid-seventeenth century such as Hester Biddle, Priscilla Cotton, and Mary Cole. Together they show the rich diversity of women's writing from a period that has too often been overlooked."--BOOK JACKET.