"A remarkable work about women writers in the Renaissance explodes our notion of the Shakespearean period and brings us in close to four women who were committed to their craft before there was any possibility of "a room of one's own." ... Ramie Targoff carries us from the sumptuous coronation of Queen Elizabeth in the mid 16th century into the private lives of four women writers working without acknowledgment at a time when women were legally the property of men ... These women had husbands and children to care for and little support for their art, yet against all odds they defined themselves as writers, finding rooms of their own whose doors had been shut for centuries. Targoff flings them open to uncover the treasures left by these extraordinary women by helping us see the period in a fresh light and by supplying an expanded reading of history and a much-needed female perspective on life in Shakespeare's day"-- Provided by publisher.
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