Published in 1647, these ten tales are among the earliest narratives in Western literature to focus on women's experiences and points of view in love relationships.

From the award-winning, bestselling author of Hold Still and We Are Okay. (Cover may vary) Colby and Bev have a long-standing pact: graduate, hit the road with Bev's band, and then spend the year wandering around Europe. But moments after the tour kicks off, Bev makes a shocking announcement: she's abandoning their plans - and Colby - to start college in the fall. But the show must go on and The Disenchantments weave through the Pacific Northwest, playing in small towns and dingy venues, while roadie- Colby struggles to deal with Bev's already-growing distance and the most important question of all: what's next? Morris Award–finalist Nina LaCour draws together the beauty and influences of music and art to brilliantly capture a group of friends on the brink of the rest of their lives.

At a time when women were generally excluded from scholarly discourse in the intellectual centers of Europe, four extraordinary female letterate proved their parity as they lectured in prominent scientific and literary academies and published in respected journals. During the Italian Enlightenment, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola, Diamante Medaglia Faini, and Aretafila Savini de' Rossi were afforded unprecedented deference in academic debates and epitomized the increasing ability of women to influence public discourse. The Contest for Knowledge reveals how these four women used the methods and themes of their male counterparts to add their voices to the vigorous and prolific debate over the education of women during the eighteenth century. In the texts gathered here, the women discuss the issues they themselves thought most urgent for the equality of women in Italian society specifically and in European culture more broadly. Their thoughts on this important subject reveal how crucial the eighteenth century was in the long history of debates about women in the academy.

Jeanne de Jussie (1503–61) experienced the Protestant Reformation from within the walls of the Convent of Saint Clare in Geneva. In her impassioned and engaging Short Chronicle, she offers a singular account of the Reformation, reporting not only on the larger clashes between Protestants and Catholics but also on events in her convent—devious city councilmen who lied to trusting nuns, lecherous soldiers who tried to kiss them, and iconoclastic intruders who smashed statues and burned paintings. Throughout her tale, Jussie highlights women’s roles on both sides of the conflict, from the Reformed women who came to her convent in an attempt to convert the nuns to the Catholic women who ransacked the shop of a Reformed apothecary. Above all, she stresses the Poor Clares’ faithfulness and the good men and women who came to them in their time of need, ending her story with the nuns’ arduous journey by foot from Reformed Geneva to Catholic Annecy. First published in French in 1611, Jussie’s Short Chronicle is translated here for an English-speaking audience for the first time, providing a fresh perspective on struggles for religious and political power in sixteenth-century Geneva and a rare glimpse at early modern monastic life.

A bold, gender-inflected reinterpretation of secular Spanish texts of the early modern period that focuses on sexual violence as expressive of cultural and political issues. Marcia Welles applies her extensive knowledge of Spanish Golden Age literature and her insightful grasp of current literary theory to synthesize a wide range of material into a uniquely engaging and refreshing interpretation of well-known texts. While the subject of rape and violence has been studied in other European literatures, Persephone's Girdle is the first to do so in the field of early modern Spanish literature.

Born into a wealthy family in Toulouse, Gabrielle de Coignard (ca. 1550-86) married a prominent statesman in 1570. Widowed three years later, with two young daughters to raise, Coignard turned to writing devotional verse to help her cope with her practical and spiritual struggles. Spiritual Sonnets presents the first English translation of 129 of Coignard's highly autobiographical poems, giving us a startlingly intimate view into the life and mind of this Renaissance woman. The sonnets are all written "in the shadow of the Cross" and include elegies, penitential lyrics, Biblical meditations, and more. Rich with emotion, Coignard's poems reveal anguished moments of loneliness and grief as well as ecstatic experiences of mystical union. They also reveal her mastery of sixteenth-century literary conventions and spiritual traditions. This edition, printed in bilingual format with Melanie E. Gregg's translations facing the French originals, will be welcomed by teachers and students of poetry, French literature, women's studies, and religious and Renaissance studies.

Gaspara Stampa was lauded for her singing during her lifetime, but her success and critical reputation as a poet emerged only after her verse was republished in the early eighteenth century. Her poetry runs the gamut of human emotion, ranging from ecstasy over a consummated love affair to despair at its end. While these tormented works and their multiple male addressees have led to speculation that Stampa may have been one of Venice’s famous courtesans, they can also be read as a rebuttal of typical assumptions about women's roles. Championed by Rainer Maria Rilke, among others, she has more recently been celebrated by feminist scholars for her distinctive and original voice and her challenge to convention. This is a translation of Stampa into English.

Internationally known during her lifetime, Laura Battiferra (1523-89) was a gifted and prolific poet in Renaissance Florence. The author of nearly 400 sonnets remarkable for their subtlety, intricate narrative structure, and learned allusions, Battiferra, who was married to the prominent sculptor and architect Bartolomeo Ammannati, traversed an elite literary and artistic network, circulating her verse in a complex and intellectually fecund exchange with some of the most illustrious figures in Italian history. In this bilingual anthology, Victoria Kirkham gathers Battiferra's most essential writing, including newly discovered poems, which provide modern readers with a valuable social chronicle of sixteenth-century Italy and the courtly culture of the Counter-Reformation.

In a time when the Pauline dictum decreed that women be silent in matters of the Church, Johanna Eleonora Petersen (1644–1724) was a pioneering author of religious books, insisting on her right to speak out as a believer above her male counterparts. Publishing her readings of the Gospels and the Book of Revelation as well as her thoughts on theology in general, Petersen and her writings created controversy, especially in orthodox circles, and she became a voice for the radical Pietists—those most at odds with Lutheran ministers and their teachings. But she defended her lay religious calling and ultimately printed fourteen original works, including her autobiography, the first of its kind written by a woman in Germany—all in an age in which most women were unable to read or write. Collected in The Life of Lady Johanna Eleonora Petersen are Petersen's autobiography and two shorter tracts that would become models of Pietistic devotional writing. A record of the status and contribution of women in the early Protestant church, this collection will be indispensable reading for scholars of seventeenth-century German religious and social history.

Beyond Sight, edited by Ryan D. Giles and Steven Wagschal, explores the ways in which Iberian writers crafted images of both Old and New Worlds using the non-visual senses (hearing, smell, taste, and touch). The contributors argue that the uses of these senses are central to understanding Iberian authors and thinkers from the pre- and early modern periods. Medievalists delve into the poetic interiorizations of the sensorial plane to show how sacramental and purportedly miraculous sensory experiences were central to the effort of affirming faith and understanding indigenous peoples in the Americas. Renaissance and early modernist essays shed new light on experiences of pungent, bustling ports and city centres, and the exotic musical performances of empire. This insightful collection covers a wide array of approaches including literary and cultural history, philosophical aesthetics, affective and cognitive studies, and theories of embodiment. Beyond Sight expands the field of sensory studies to focus on the Iberian Peninsula and its colonies from historical, literary, and cultural perspectives.