Maureen Quilligan is R. Florence Brinkley Professor of English and Department Chair at Duke University. She is the author, most recently, of The Allegory of Female Authority: Christine de Pizan's Cite des Dames.

"Provocative and highly instructive."-Sixteenth Century Journal "Quilligan writes a history of women's authorship that honors the filiation among women without being exclusively feminine, in that she takes into account significant male contributors to the 'female line.' Her work effectively combines sophisticated theory with a keen eye for historical detail to show how women authors of the period consolidated their authority as writers through the use of incestuous motifs."-Leah Marcus, Vanderbilt University "Quilligan draws theory from anthropology and French feminism, and detail from history. While her contention that incest (broadly defined) often empowers women as authors may be surprising, her argument is convincing-and she crowns it with a reading of Elizabeth I's own part in this."-Times Literary Supplement

• 1. Halting the traffic in women: theoretical foundations2. Elizabeth I (with a note on Marguerite de Navarre)3. Sir Philip Sidney's queen4. Mary Sidney Herbert (with a note on Elizabeth Cary)5. Spenser's Britomart6. Mary Wroth7. Shakespeare's CordeliaEpilogue: Milton's eve

Maureen Quilligan is R. Florence Brinkley Professor of English and Department Chair at Duke University. She is the author, most recently, of The Allegory of Female Authority: Christine de Pizan's Cite des Dames.

"Provocative and highly instructive."-Sixteenth Century Journal "Quilligan writes a history of women's authorship that honors the filiation among women without being exclusively feminine, in that she takes into account significant male contributors to the 'female line.' Her work effectively combines sophisticated theory with a keen eye for historical detail to show how women authors of the period consolidated their authority as writers through the use of incestuous motifs."-Leah Marcus, Vanderbilt University "Quilligan draws theory from anthropology and French feminism, and detail from history. While her contention that incest (broadly defined) often empowers women as authors may be surprising, her argument is convincing-and she crowns it with a reading of Elizabeth I's own part in this."-Times Literary Supplement

• 1. Halting the traffic in women: theoretical foundations2. Elizabeth I (with a note on Marguerite de Navarre)3. Sir Philip Sidney's queen4. Mary Sidney Herbert (with a note on Elizabeth Cary)5. Spenser's Britomart6. Mary Wroth7. Shakespeare's CordeliaEpilogue: Milton's eve

Maureen Quilligan is R. Florence Brinkley Professor of English and Department Chair at Duke University. She is the author, most recently, of The Allegory of Female Authority: Christine de Pizan's Cite des Dames.

"Provocative and highly instructive."-Sixteenth Century Journal "Quilligan writes a history of women's authorship that honors the filiation among women without being exclusively feminine, in that she takes into account significant male contributors to the 'female line.' Her work effectively combines sophisticated theory with a keen eye for historical detail to show how women authors of the period consolidated their authority as writers through the use of incestuous motifs."-Leah Marcus, Vanderbilt University "Quilligan draws theory from anthropology and French feminism, and detail from history. While her contention that incest (broadly defined) often empowers women as authors may be surprising, her argument is convincing-and she crowns it with a reading of Elizabeth I's own part in this."-Times Literary Supplement

• 1. Halting the traffic in women: theoretical foundations2. Elizabeth I (with a note on Marguerite de Navarre)3. Sir Philip Sidney's queen4. Mary Sidney Herbert (with a note on Elizabeth Cary)5. Spenser's Britomart6. Mary Wroth7. Shakespeare's CordeliaEpilogue: Milton's eve