Writings of a Well-Learned Gentlewoman

Margaret More Roper (1505–1544) was the first nonroyal woman to have a book printed in England: Devout Treatise upon the Pater Noster, an English translation of a Latin commentary on the Lord’s Prayer by Desiderius Erasmus. Elizabeth McCutcheon is professor emeritus at the University of Hawai’i and is the foremost authority on Margaret Roper. Recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Center for Thomas More Studies, she has published numerous articles on Roper. This series edition is the culmination of her outstanding scholarly contributions to Roper studies. Jaime Goodrich is professor of English and director of the Humanities Center at Wayne State University and has published widely on early modern women writers, particularly in relation to Catholicism and humanism. William Gentrup is professor emeritus at Arizona State University and is the editor or coeditor of three scholarly collections on Renaissance subjects, including, with Elizabeth McCutcheon, A Companion to Margaret More Roper Studies: Life Records, Essential Texts, and Critical Essays.

"Writings of a Well-Learned Gentlewoman presents for the first time all of Margaret Roper’s known writings, together with supplementary texts by Erasmus, Hyrde, and Alington that set the writings in context. With glosses, annotations, and new translations of Latin texts the editors bring fresh light to bear on Roper’s work. In doing so, they confirm the shift from a hagiographical emphasis on her as dutiful and devoted daughter to an appraisal of her achievements as scholar and translator. From a wider perspective, they offer an objective picture of what it meant to have been a “well-learned gentlewoman” in early Tudor England, and what it has meant since to have become an iconic figure within and beyond its shores."

• Illustrations Abbreviations Acknowledgments INTRODUCTION A DEVOUT TREATISE UPON THE PATER NOSTER Preface, by Richard Hyrde The First Petition The Second Petition The Third Petition The Fourth Petition The Fifth Petition The Sixth Petition The Seventh Petition LETTERS 1. From Desiderius Erasmus, September 6, 1529 2. To Desiderius Erasmus, November 4, 1529 3. To Thomas More, May? 1534 4. Alice Alington to Margaret Roper, August 17, 1534 5. Margaret Roper to Alice Alington, 1534 6. To Thomas More, 1534 7. Excerpts from an Otherwise Lost Letter to Thomas More, 1534 or 1535 APPENDIX: POEM ATTRIBUTED TO MARGARET ROPER Bibliography Glossary Index