Research Guides: HIST 354: Amazons and Viragos: Gender and Power in Early Modern Europe (HC): Primary Sources

Online Source Collections in Tripod

There are some online collections available for early modern printed texts. Haverford has access to bothEarly English Books Online (EEBO) and Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO):

Burney Collection Newspapers Archive, 17th & 18th Century
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Provides full text to the newspapers and news pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817), representing the largest single collection of 17th and 18th century English news media. The 700 or so bound volumes of newspapers and news pamphlets were published mostly in London, however there are also some English provincial, Irish and Scottish papers, and a few examples from the American colonies, Europe and India. Cross-search all Cengage subscribed newspaper collections via NewsVault.
Early English Books Online (EEBO)
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Contains digital images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700. This collection contains about 100,000 of over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplement. Includes books, pamphlets, manuscripts and newspapers.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
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Offers full-text access to English-language titles and editions published between 1701 and 1800 including books, pamphlets, almanacs, Bibles and treatises. Subjects covered include history, geography, fine arts, medicine, science, literature, language, religion, philosophy and law. Significant collections of women writers, collections on the French Revolution, and numerous eighteenth-century editions of the works of Shakespeare are also included.

Electronic Enlightenment
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Searchable and browseable database offering extensive access to the web of correspondence between the greatest thinkers and writers of the long eighteenth century and their families and friends, bankers and booksellers, patrons and publishers. Coverage includes letters and documents, document sources such as manuscripts and early printed editions, scholarly annotations, and links to biographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers, and other online resources.
French Women Writers (ARTFL Project)
Online texts by forty women authors from the 16th through the centuries.

Women Writers Online
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Offers a full-text collection of works in English by pre-victorian women writers. Covers 1400-1850.

Important source collections available open access on the Web

Gallica This link opens in a new window
Gallica is a digital library of French and francophone culture maintained by the Bibliothque nationale de France. Contains numerous electronic texts, images, maps, animation, and sound files of French and other publications in history, literature, science, philosophy, law, economics, and political science. Covers the Middle Ages to the present.

Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook
A compilation of primary sources done by Rictor Norton, an independent scholar.
Newgate Calendar
This popular account of crime and criminals was first published in 1760. Some readers gave the books to their children as moral instruction. It covers a much wider geographic area in Great Britain than the Old Bailey records.
Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London 1674 to 1834
This site includes a searchable database with records from over 100,000 criminal trials in London. The search interface allows you to limit by date, type of crime and punishment, and gender of victim and criminal. Note also the historical background provided.

Sources from Haverford Special Collections

Annals of Elizabeth, Late Queen of England
By William Camden.
London, 1635.
Fragmenta regalia, or, Observations on the late Queen Elizabeth, her times and favorits
London, 1641.
Les crimes des reines de France : depuis le commencement de la monarchie jusqu'á Marie-Antoinette
By Louis Marie Prudhomme. Also attributed to Mme. L.F. (Guinement de Kéralio) Robert, and to L.P. Bérenger.
A Paris: Au bureau des Révolutions de Paris ...; A Lyon: Chez Prudhomme aîné, 1791.
Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo di Cesare Vecellio di nuouo accresciuti di molte figure.
In Venetia : appresso i Sessa, 1598
Illustrated book in Italian on dress and costume around the world, including Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
En detestacion de los grandes abusos en los traxes y adornos nueuamente introducidos en España
En Madrid: En la imprenta de Maria de Quiñones: A costa de Pedro Coello mercader de libros, 1636.
A book on women's dress in Spanish; printed by a woman printer.
La gamologie, ou, De l'éducation des filles destinées au mariage
"ouvrage dans lequel on traite de l'excellence du mariage, de son utilité politique & de sa fin & des causes qui le rendent heureux ou malheureux"
A Paris : Chez la veuve Duchesne, libraire, rue S. Jacques, au-dessous de la fountaine S. Benoît, au Temple du Goût, 1772
French book on women's education and marriage.
Womens speaking justified, proved and allowed of by the Scriptures, all such as speak by the spirit and power of the Lord Jesus
By Margaret Fell
London, 1666
Select observations on English bodies, or, Cures both empericall and historicall
London: John Sherley, 1657.
Traité des affections vaporeuses des deux sexes
Lyon: Chez Benoit Duplain, 1763.
This book discusses mental illness, including "hysteria."
The Prince
Machiavelli.
London: Printed by R. Bishop, for Wil: Hils, and are to sold by Daniel Pakeman, 1640
The battle of the sexes : a poem
By Samuel Wesley.
London: Printed and reprinted in Dublin for William Smith, 1724
Fables ancient and modern
London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, within Gray's Inn Gate next Gray's Inn Lane, 1700
By John Dryden, Ovid, and others.
Comedies and Tragedies
By Beaumont and Fletcher
London: Printed for Humphrey Robinson... and for Humphrey Moseley... 1647.
Includes the following plays: The island princesse -- The maide in the mill -- The prophetesse -- The double marriage -- The womans prize, or, The tamer tamed -- Loves cure, or, The martiall maide -- The queene of Corinth -- Women plea'sd -- A wife for a moneth -- The faire maid of the inne -- Loves pilgrimage
The mock-marriage : A comedy, acted at the theatre in Dorset-Garden
By Thomas Scott
London: Printed for H. Rhodes etc., 1696.
Three weeks after the marriage : a comedy in two acts, as performed at the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden
By Arthur Murphy
London: G. Kearsley, 1776
New British theatre : consisting of fifty-six tragedies and comedies, with fifty-six farces.
Edinburgh: Printed for Charles Elliot, 1787.
Includes the following plays: A bold stroke for a wife
Royal documents
Documents in the Charles Roberts collection include those from Queen Elizabeth I of England, Queen Christina of Sweden, Maria Theresa of Austria
Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France. Contenant ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable dans ce roiaume depuis 1515. jusqu'en 1611. avec les portraits des rois, reines, princes, princesses & autres personnes illustres dont il y est fait mention
Cologne: Chez les heritiers de Herman Demen
1719

Sources in Printed Form

Primary texts have been edited, reprinted in facsimiles, or transferred to microfilm can be borrowed through E Z Borrow or interlibrary loan if they are not in Tripod.

1) Many of them will be listed in Tripod or WorldCat under subject terms and the word "sources." For example, the search (queen OR queens* OR regent*) [Subjects]  sources [Exact Subject]           produces books including:
    Jeanne d'Albret : letters from the Queen of Navarre with an ample declaration. 2016
    Four letters from the Queen in France read before the High-Court of Justice in Westminster-Hall on Friday last: the first directed to her son the king of Scots. The second, to the Marquess of Arguyle: The third, to the Earl of Cassels. And the fourth to the Lord Lowdon. Signed Henretti Maria. 1651

An Exact account of the ceremonial at the coronation of their Most Excellent Majesties King VVilliam and Queen Mary, the eleventh day of this instant April, 1689.

2) Major series of early modern and medieval women's writings
Other Voice in Early Modern Europe A series of print editions by or about women. Individual titles are listed in Tripod. Use the Tripod icon and add geographic or topic keywords for a more focused search.

3) Conduct books for women - Educational and moral texts addressing women's roles and behavior.

Search in Tripod Women -- Conduct of life [Exact Search] AND "early works to 1800" [Subject]

Books printed in the 17th or 18th century are kept in libraries' rare book collections. You can go to Haverford's Special collections, Bryn Mawr, the University of Pennsylvania, and other local libraries to see these books.

La Cité des dames Series

La Cité des Dames was a publication series done by the Université de Saint-Étienne which presents French women's writings from the 16th and 17th centuries.

The following titles from the series, as well as related titles, are available in the three colleges:

Les Angoisses douloureuses qui procèdent d'amour
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By Hélisenne de Crenne
Éloges collectifs de femmes de la Renaissance francaise
Published in 2021. On order for Haverford.
Enseignements à sa fille: suivis de l'Histoire du siège de Brest
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By Anne de France
Les épîtres familières et invectives ; [suivi de] Le songe
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By Hélisenne de Crenne
L' Histoire des favorites
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By Anne de La Roche-Guilhen
Mémoires et Discours
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By Marguerite de Valois.
Théâtre de femmes de l'ancien régime
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By Marguerite de Navarre ; Louise Labé ; Catherine Des Roches

Selected Titles - Women's Writings

The Case of Mistress Mary Hampson by Jessica Malay
ISBN: 0804790558
Publication Date: 2014-01-29
The centerpiece of The Case of Mistress Mary Hampson is the autobiographical narrative of a 17th-century woman in an abusive and violent marriage. Composed at a time when marital disharmony was in vogue with readers and publishers, it stands out from comparable works, usually single broadsheets. In her own words, Mary recounts various dramatic and stressful episodes from her decades-long marriage to Robert Hampson and her strategies for dealing with it. The harrowing tale contains scenes of physical abuse, mob violence, abandonment, flight, and destitution. It also shows moments of personal courage and interventions on the author's behalf by friends and strangers, some of whom are subject to severe reprisals. Mary wrote her story to come to terms with her situation, to justify her actions, and to cast herself in a virtuous light. The accompanying discussion of her life, drawn from other sources, provides chilling evidence of the vulnerability of seventeenth-century women and the flawed legal mechanisms that were supposed to protect them.
Elizabeth I's Italian Letters by Carlo M. Bajetta
ISBN: 9781137442321
Publication Date: 2017-04-26
This is the first edition ever of the Queen's correspondence in Italian. These letters cast a new light on her talents as a linguist and provide interesting details as to her political agenda, and on the cultural milieu of her court. This book provides a fresh analysis of the surviving evidence concerning Elizabeth's learning and use of Italian, and of the activity of the members of her "Foreign Office." All of the documents transcribed here are accompanied by a short introduction focusing on their content and context, a brief description of their transmission history, and an English translation.
Lay by Your Needles Ladies, Take the Pen by Suzanne Trill (Editor); Kate Chedgzoy (Editor); Melanie Osborne (Editor)
Publication Date: 1997-06-27
This anthology contains long extracts from fifty early modern texts, including witchcraft pamphlets, letters and other manuscript material, prophetic texts, practical books and petitions, as well as the more widely recognized genres of prose fiction and autobiography. The women writers themselves represent a range of different social, religious and political positions. Texts by male writers are also included to promote "a gendered poetics that rereads men's texts in the weave of women's". The result is a comprehensive introduction to women's writing in the Renaissance that encourages the exploration of the differences between women.
Major Women Writers of Seventeenth-Century England by James Fitzmaurice (Editor); Josephine A. Roberts (Editor); Eugene R. Cunnar (Editor); Nancy A. Gutierrez (Editor); Carol Barash (Editor)
Publication Date: 1997-06-15
Many would find it difficult to name a woman writer in England before Jane Austen, even though women were writing as early as the time of Chaucer. It was during the seventeenth century, however, that women writers ceased to be viewed as odd or remarkable and became accepted as regular and often respected members of the literary world. The enormous commercial and artistic success of Aphra Behn's plays on the London stage of the 1670s and '80s marked the end of the time where only men were literary luminaries. Major Women Writers of Seventeenth-Century Englandbrings together in one volume a rich assortment of writing by the women Behn influenced, as well as those who preceded her. Collected are works by Aphra Behn, Elizabeth Cary, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Finch, Aemelia Lanyer, Katherine Philips, Ester Sowernam, Rachel Speght, and Mary Wroth. The texts included are newly edited and rely on the best manuscripts and editions of the time.
Popular Fiction by Women 1660-1730 by Paula R. Backscheider (Editor); John J. Richetti (Editor)
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Publication Date: 1997-02-20
Popular Fiction by Women 1660-1730 gathers together for the first time a representative selection of shorter fiction by the most successful women writers of the period, from Aphra Behn the first important English female professional writer, to Penelope Aubin and Eliza Haywood, who with Daniel Defoe dominated prose fiction in the 1720s. The texts included were among the best selling titles of their time, and played a key role in the expanding market for narrative in the early eighteenth century. Crucial to the development of the longer novel of manners and morals that emerged in the mid-eighteenth century these novellas have been much neglected by literary historians but now - with the impetus of feminist criticism - they have been re-established as an essential chapter in the history of the novel in English and are widely studied. Though strikingly varied in narrative format and purpose, ranging as they do from the erotic and sensational to the sentimental and pious, they offer a distinct fictional approach to the moral and social issues of the age from a female standpoint.
Women Critics 1660--1820 by Folger Collective on Early Women Critics Staff (Editor); Folger Collective on Early Women Critics (Editor)
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Publication Date: 1995-12-22
This anthology demonstrates women's participation in the construction of criticism as a literary genre. The selected writings, by forty-one of the women who produced criticism between 1660 and 1820, include writers from England, France, Germany, and the United States.