Mary Erler is Professor of English at Fordham University. She has edited the work of the Tudor poet Robert Copland (1993) and has co-edited Women and Power in the Middle Ages (1988). She has written on devotional literature in L. Hellinga and J. B. Trapp (eds.), Cambridge History of the Book, Vol. 3, 1400–1557 (1999). Her essays have appeared in Renaissance Quarterly, Viator, The Library, Modern Philology, Medieval Studies, Medium Aewm, and other journals.

'Mary Erler's discussion offers both new information and new ways of thinking about it.' The Ricardian

• Acknowledgments; Prologue; Introduction: Dinah's story; 1. Ownership and transmission of books: women's religious communities; 2. The library of a London vowess: Margery de Nerford; 3. A Norwich widow and her devout society: Margaret Purdans; 4. Orthodoxy: the Fettyplace sisters at Syon; 5. Heterodoxy: anchoress Katherine Manne and abbess Elizabeth Throckmorton; 6. Women owners or religious incunabula: the physical evidence; Epilogue; Appendices; Notes; Select bibliography; Indexes.