This collection of essays by leading scholars in the field reveals the major contribution of puritan women to the intellectual culture of the early modern period. It demonstrates that women's roles within puritan and broader communities encompassed translating and disseminating key texts, producing an impressive body of original writing.

This collection explores the intellectual participation of puritan women in early modern culture arguing that their puritanism developed rather than prohibited their substantial contributions

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors List of Abbreviations Foreword; N.H.Keeble Introduction; J.Harris & E.Scott-Baumann The Exemplary Anne Vaughan Lock; S.Felch The Countess of Pembroke and the Practice of Piety; D.Clarke Imagining a National Church: Election and Education in the Works of Anne Cooke Bacon; L.Magnusson Anne, Lady Southwell: Coteries and Culture; E.Clarke Godly Patronage: Lucy Harington Russell, Countess of Bedford; M.O'Connor 'An Ancient Mother in our Israel': Mary, Lady Vere; J.Eales 'Give me thy hairt and I desyre no more': The Song of Songs, Petrarchism and Elizabeth Melville's Puritan Poetics; S.C.E.Ross 'But I thinke and beleeve': Lady Brilliana Harley's Puritanism in Epistolary Community; J.Harris 'Take unto ye words': Elizabeth Isham's 'Booke of Rememberance' and Puritan Cultural Forms; E.Longfellow Anne Bradstreet's Poetry and Providence: Earth, Wind, and Fire; S.Wiseman Viscountess Ranelagh and the Authorisation of Women's Knowledge in the Hartlib Circle; R.Connoll Anna Trapnel's Literary Geography; D.Purkiss Lucy Hutchinson, the Bible and Order and Disorder; E.Scott-Baumann Pregnant Dreams in Early Modern Europe: The Philadelphian Example; N.Smith Afterword; D.Norbrook Bibliography Index