Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faith includes essays from diverse disciplinary perspectives to consider the full range of Astell's political, theological, philosophical, and poetic writings. The volume does not eschew the more traditional scholarly interest in Astell's concerns about gender; rather, it reveals how Astell's works require attention not only for their role in the development of early modern feminism, but also for their interventions on subjects ranging from political authority to educational theory, from individual agency to divine service, and from Cartesian ethics to Lockean epistemology. Given the vast breadth of her writings, her active role within early modern political and theological debates, and the sophisticated complexity of her prose, Astell has few parallels among her contemporaries. Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faith bestows upon Astell the attention which she deserves not merely as a proto-feminist, but as a major figure of the early modern period.

Chapter 1 "Dreading to Engage Her", WilliamKolbrener, MichalMichelson; Chapter 2 Mary Astell, Religion, and Feminism, SharonAchinstein; Chapter 3 Mary Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694), and the Anglican Reformation of Manners in Late-Seventeenth-Century England, HannahSmith; Chapter 4 Astell's "Design of Friendship" in Letters and A Serious Proposal, Part I, WilliamKolbrener; Chapter 5 Mary Astell and John Locke, MarkGoldie; Chapter 6 Mary Astell's Law of the Heart, CorrinneHarol; Chapter 7 Religious Nonconformity and the Problem of Dissent in the Works of Aphra Behn and Mary Astell, MelindaZook; Chapter 8 "Great in Humilitie", ClairePickard; Chapter 9 "Tis better that I endure", Ann JessieVan Sant; Chapter 10 Mary Astell on the Causation of Sensation, EileenO'Neill; Chapter 11 Astell, Cartesian Ethics, and the Critique of Custom, JacquelineBroad; Chapter 12 Are You Experienced?, E. DerekTaylor; Chapter 13 "Cry up Liberty", Hilda L.Smith;