'Carnell's research is meticulous ... a highly useful addition to our knowledge about late Restoration and very early eighteenth century political culture.' Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer 'a biography with much to offer: the portrait of Manley that emerges is thorough and presents new information on her life and writings.' The Scriblerian

• Introduction; Chapter 1 ‘A Long Untainted Descent’: Her Father’s Daughter?; Chapter 2 Roger Manley: ‘A Scholar in the Midst of a Camp’; Chapter 3 A ‘Liberal Education’: Youth and Early Life in London; Chapter 4 A ‘Female Wit’: 1694–6; Chapter 5 ‘Some More, and Less] Profitable Employ’: 1697–1705; Chapter 6 Not Yet a Propaganda Writer: 1705–8; Chapter 7 ‘[T]hrowing the First Stone’: 1709; Chapter 8 Writing Under a Tory Ministry: 1710–14; Chapter 9 A Celebrated ‘Muse’: 1714–24;