More women writers

Because they were not in the mainstream, women writers are seldom found in anthologies, even when their style would as well illustrate changing fashion as their male contemporaries. Renaissance women, like their male counterparts, wrote in a variety of genres. Here is a list of popular literary genres and some women who wrote within them.

• Prose
  • Katherine Parr, Queen of England (1512-48)
  • Anne Askew (c. 1520-46)
  • Jane Anger (fl. 1589)
  • Dorothy Leigh (?-1616)
  • Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland (1585-1639). Elizabeth Cary was also the first woman to write a play in English.
• Autobiography
  • Lady Margaret Hoby (1571-1633)
  • Mary Ward (1585-1645)
  • Lady Anne Clifford (1590-1676)
• Verse
  • Isabella Whitney (fl. 1567-78)
  • Mary (Sidney) Herbert (1561-1621)
  • Mary (Sidney) Wroth (c. 1586-1651)

The illustration

The illustration is taken from the sketch of Sir Thomas More's family by Hans Holbein. It shows Margaret Griggs, More's adopted daughter, reading or explaining a passage to More's father. Margaret Ferguson (and others) point out in Rewriting the Renaissance that this part of the sketch was omitted from Holbein's finished painting-- a typical reduction of the importance of the role of women in the period.

(Click to see more of the same sketch.)