277 pp / Paperback / ISBN 978-0-7727-2128-0 / $31.95
Edited and Introduced by Elizabeth Heale
Winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women’s 2013 Josephine Roberts Award for a Scholarly Edition
http://ssemw.org/2013-award-winners/
“Elizabeth Heale’s edition of The Devonshire Manuscript brings this important collection of Tudor poetry into print for the first time in an outstanding contribution to Toronto’s The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe Series. Heale’s subtitle, “A Women’s Book of Courtly Poetry,” announces her intention to demonstrate the gendered production and circulation of The Devonshire Manuscript, better known for its inclusion of the work of such canonical male poets as Sir Thomas Wyatt than for the women who owned, copied, commented upon, edited, and contributed to the manuscript. Heale’s introduction meticulously outlines the varied evidence for reconstructing the composition practices of Mary (Howard) Fitzroy, Lady Mary Douglas, and Mary Shelton, illuminating their active participation—and interventions—in the literary culture of the Henrican court. This beautifully produced volume preserves our sense of the original by including comparative plates of the various hands that contributed to the manuscript and by graphically reproducing the numerical and symbolic annotations in the modern print transcription. While it may seem incredible that such a significant manuscript has been unavailable in print until now, we can only be grateful that the first authoritative edition was undertaken by Heale, whose intelligent, careful, and graceful scholarly edition brings this richly documented example of early modern women’s literary practices vividly into view.” — SSEMW award report.
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This is the first printed edition of a manuscript collection of verse whose importance for an understanding of the culture of Henry VIII’s court and women’s central role in the exchange and enjoyment of poetry cannot be over-estimated. The manuscript was owned and used by, among others, Lady Margaret Douglas, the King’s niece; the Duchess of Richmond, sister of the poet Earl of Surrey; and Mary Shelton, Queen Anne Boleyn’s cousin. These women not only collected a unique anthology of the most fashionable poems of the period, but also contributed verses, occasionally of their own composition. This edition modernizes spelling and punctuation, providing an easily readable text, while preserving aspects of the idiosyncratic appearance of the original manuscript. Notes explain unfamiliar words and allusions, and there is a substantial introduction.
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“This is an essential volume, and there’s no scholar better equipped to edit it than Elizabeth Heale, whose expertise on early women’s writing in manuscript is unsurpassed. The Devonshire Manuscript is a vital source of Tudor literary history, illustrating the circulation of lyrics by Tudor poets such as Sir Thomas Wyatt, and offering evidence of collaborative forms of production and circulation that challenge prior assumptions about early forms of authorship, readership, and literary culture more broadly. Yet despite its importance, the Devonshire Manuscript has been all but inaccessible until now. With its extensive notes, thoughtful introduction, and carefully edited text, Heale’s edition will be a valuable reference work for scholars as well as an important textbook for students encountering the Devonshire Manuscript for the first time.”
— Jennifer Summit, Professor of English, Stanford University.
To view an excerpt of this work, please click here (PDF).
Elizabeth Heale was Senior Lecturer in the Department of English Literature at the University of Reading until she retired in 2008. She is currently an Honorary Research Fellow in the Early Modern Research Centre at the University of Reading. She has published a number of books and articles on early modern women’s writing, on sixteenth-century autobiographical writing, and on early Tudor and Elizabethan poetry. Her books include Wyatt, Surrey, and Early Tudor Poetry (1998) and Autobiography and Authorship in Renaissance Verse: Chronicles of the Self (2003).
Renaissance Quarterly, 66/2 (Summer 2013): 737-738. Reviewed by Kimberly Schutte.
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