News from the Midell Regions and Calthorpe’s Chapel

This first print edition of two extant manuscripts by Dorothy Calthorpe (1648–1693) introduces a new seventeenth-century woman writer to the growing canon of early modern female authors. The edition provides transcriptions of the manuscripts and Calthorpe’s will, as well as a hefty apparatus that features a comprehensive introduction to Calthorpe, her family, and her work; a Glossary of Persons who figured in her writing and her life; and two genealogical charts. It also details portions of Calthorpe’s texts that she copied from other writers and re-arranged and re-purposed for her own use, providing a fascinating glimpse into the links between a woman’s reading and writing in her composition practice. Ultimately, Calthorpe’s writings (including both prose and verse ranging from Petrarchan love poems to roman à clef and devotional verse), and the thoughtfully constructed and illustrated volumes in which her texts appear, demonstrate the rich intellectual life of a previously unknown female writer and provide a compelling example of Restoration manuscript production.

The discovery of two manuscripts written by Dorothy Calthorpe enriches the canon of early modern writing in many different genres: speculative fiction, family history (which in Calthorpe’s case intersects with romance writing), pastoral lyrics, commentary on the Fall, and religious poetry. Perfectly pitched to a wide audience, this edition provides learned glosses and sketches out Calthorpe’s entire milieu, from her will and self-designed funeral monument, to her extended family relationships, to later provenance information about her books and manuscripts. Julie Eckerle’s presentation of Calthorpe’s work allows today’s readers to appreciate this fascinating writer’s wide-ranging interests, unusual imagery, and unique voice.

-Victoria E. Burke, Associate Professor, University of Ottawa

JULIE A. ECKERLE is professor of English Literature and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota Morris. She is the author of Romancing the Self in Early Modern Englishwomen’s Life Writing (Ashgate), and co-editor of Genre and Women’s Life Writing in Early Modern England (Ashgate) and Women’s Life Writing and Early Modern Ireland (Nebraska).