This collection reveals the valuable work that women achieved in publishing, printing, writing and reading early modern English books, from those who worked in the book trade to those who composed, selected, collected and annotated books. Women gathered rags for paper production, invested in books and oversaw the presses that printed them. Their writing and reading had an impact on their contemporaries and the developing literary canon. A focus on women's work enables these essays to recognize the various forms of labour -- textual and social as well as material and commercial -- that women of different social classes engaged in. Those considered include the very poor, the middling sort who were active in the book trade, and the elite women authors and readers who participated in literary communities. Taken together, these essays convey the impressive work that women accomplished and their frequent collaborations with others in the making, marking, and marketing of early modern English books.

RECOMMENDED BY DOLLY PARTON IN PEOPLE MAGAZINE! A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A USA TODAY BESTSELLER A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER The bestselling historical fiction novel from Kim Michele Richardson, this is a novel following Cussy Mary, a packhorse librarian and her quest to bring books to the Appalachian community she loves, perfect for readers of William Kent Kreuger and Lisa Wingate. The perfect addition to your next book club! The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything—everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy's not only a book woman, however, she's also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy's family or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble. If Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she's going to have to confront prejudice as old as the Appalachias and suspicion as deep as the holler. Inspired by the true blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the brave and dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse library service of the 1930s, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a story of raw courage, fierce strength, and one woman's belief that books can carry us anywhere—even back home. Look for The Book Woman's Daughter, the new novel from Kim Michele Richardson, out now! Other Bestselling Historical Fiction from Sourcebooks Landmark: The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict The Engineer's Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris

The novel of adultery is a nineteenth-century form about the experience of women, produced almost exclusively by men. Bill Overton's study is the first to address the gender implications of this form, and the first to write its history. The opening chapter defines the terms 'adultery' and 'novel of adultery', and discusses how the form arose in Continental Europe, but failed to appear in Britain. Successive chapters deal with its development in France, and with examples from Russia, Denmark, Germany, Spain and Portugal.

In the second half of the eighteenth century the female reader was a frequent topic of cultural debate and moral concern. This book examines the variety of ways in which women ‘read’ the social world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century novel.

The essential diet and fitness guide to lean, sexy abs—including a results-driven 4-week program to lose weight, strengthen your core, and tone your entire body Call it a spare tire, muffin top, or paunch. Men and women consistently cite their belly as their biggest problem area—and it is often the toughest final pounds to lose. Not anymore! Whether readers’ eating habits have been affected by stress, their bodies have changed with age, or they’re constantly doing crunches without results, it’s time to blast belly fat the right way. Using the comprehensive, week-by-week eating and exercise plan, readers can lose up to 20 pounds in 4 weeks—and keep it off, forever. The Women’s Health Big Book of Abs special features include: A delicious, easy-to-follow diet that includes satisfying carbs! A special section on the best pre- and post-pregnancy workouts Hundreds of tips on how to reveal a lean, flat belly and bikini-worthy body! Including a step-by-step, 4-week eating and exercise plan, easy-to-prepare recipes, and hundreds of exercises, The Women’s Health Big Book of Abs is the ultimate guide to a leaner, fitter, sexier body—starting with your core.

Using private diary writing as her model, Catherine Delafield investigates the cultural significance of nineteenth-century women's writing and reading practices. Beginning with an examination of non-fictional diaries and the practice of diary-writing, she assesses the interaction between the fictional diary and other forms of literary production such as epistolary narrative, the periodical, the factual document and sensation fiction. The discrepancies between the private diary and its use as a narrative device are explored through the writings of Frances Burney, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anne Brontë, Dinah Craik, Wilkie Collins and Bram Stoker. The ideological function of the diary, Delafield suggests, produces a conflict in fictional narrative between that diary's received use as a domestic and spiritual record and its authority as a life-writing opportunity for women. Delafield considers women as writers, readers, and subjects and contextualizes her analysis within nineteenth-century reading practice. She demonstrates ways in which women could becomes performers of their own story through a narrative method which was authorized by their femininity and at the same time allowed them to challenge the myth of domestic womanhood.

The longest-running war is the battle over how women should behave. “Conduct Books and the History of the Ideal Woman” examines six centuries of advice literature, analyzing the print origins of gendered expectations that continue to inform our thinking about women’s roles and abilities. Close readings of numerous conduct manuals from Britain and America, written by men and women, explain and contextualize the legacy of sexism as represented in prescriptive writing for women from 1372 to the present. While existing period-specific studies of conduct manuals consider advice literature within the society that wrote and read them, “Conduct Books and the History of the Ideal Woman” provides the only analysis of both the volumes themselves and the larger debates taking place within their pages across the centuries. Combining textual literary analysis with a social history sensibility while remaining accessible to expert and novice, this book will help readers understand the on-going debate about the often-contradictory guidelines for female behavior.

"Everyone knows about Noah, Moses, and Paul. But what about Hagar, Michal, and Priscilla, all women who had a direct influence in the story of God's people? The Bible is full of fascinating, powerful, and faithful women, as well as lessons that have unique meaning for women today." "In The Women's Study Bible, respected Bible scholars draw out these often overlooked stories and reveal the lives of women at the time and share lessons for women of today. Separate sidebars cover topics such as midwifery, women disciples, and female images of God. The Women's Study Bible doesn't shy away from the difficult issues, but helps readers to understand them better in both their original context and the modern world." "The New Living Translation of the Bible uses inclusive language for humanity and where it is clear that both male and female are meant to be included." --Book Jacket.

The rise of Jewish feminism, a branch of both second-wave feminism and the American counterculture, in the late 1960s had an extraordinary impact on the leadership, practice, and beliefs of American Jews. Women Remaking American Judaism is the first book to fully examine the changes in American Judaism as women fought to practice their religion fully and to ensure that its rituals, texts, and liturgies reflected their lives. In addition to identifying the changes that took place, this volume aims to understand the process of change in ritual, theology, and clergy across the denominations. The essays in Women Remaking American Judaism offer a paradoxical understanding of Jewish feminism as both radical, in the transformational sense, and accomodationist, in the sense that it was thoroughly compatible with liberal Judaism. Essays in the first section, Reenvisioning Judaism, investigate the feminist challenges to traditional understanding of Jewish law, texts, and theology. In Redefining Judaism, the second section, contributors recognize that the changes in American Judaism were ultimately put into place by each denomination, their law committees, seminaries, rabbinic courts, rabbis, and synagogues, and examine the distinct evolution of women's issues in the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist movements. Finally, in the third section, Re-Framing Judaism, essays address feminist innovations that, in some cases, took place outside of the synagogue. An introduction by Riv-Ellen Prell situates the essays in both American and modern Jewish history and offers an analysis of why Jewish feminism was revolutionary. Women Remaking American Judaism raises provocative questions about the changes to Judaism following the feminist movement, at every turn asking what change means in Judaism and other American religions and how the fight for equality between men and women parallels and differs from other changes in Judaism. Women Remaking American Judaism will be of interest to both scholars of Jewish history and women's studies.