The Devonshire Manuscript: A Women's Book of Courtly Poetry

Winner of the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women's 2013 Josephine Roberts Award for a Scholarly Edition published in 2012

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.

"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

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. Books include Wyatt, Surrey, and EarlyTudor Poetry (1998) and Autobiography and Authorship in Renaissance Verse: Chronicles of the Self (2003). Her current research involves further work on Lady Margaret Douglas and participation in the Early Modern Research Centre’s project on early printed miscellanies.

REVIEWS
Early Modern Women 9.1 (2014): 167–170. Reviewed by Christopher Martin.
Modern Language Review 110.3 (2015): 819–820. Reviewed by Catherine Bates.
Renaissance Quarterly 66.2 (2013): 737–738. Reviewed by Kimberly Schutte.
The Sixteenth Century Journal 44.3 (2013): 836–838. Reviewed by Scott Lucas.