Economic Imperatives for Women's Writing in Early Modern Europe

Nina Geerdink, Ph.D. (1983), Utrecht University, is Assistant Professor of Early Modern Dutch Literature at that university. She is a specialist in the seventeenth century and has published on women’s writing, social poetry and authorship.Carme Font Paz, Ph.D. (1972), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, is Lecturer of English Literature at that university, and Research Associate at the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. She is a specialist in the seventeenth century and has published on women’s prophetic writing, poetry and intellectual history.

"Besides being valuable for future researches within the socio-ideological context of women’s writing closely intertwined with the personal element, with its clear and precise language, the book “Economic Imperatives for Women’s Writing in Early Modern Europe” could also be read outside the confines of academia.[...] With nicely distinguished parallels inside a large comparative European scope, the authors form a web of tentative studies of women writers in the process of transgressing the socially imposed limitations by making profit out of their literary activities and improving their economic status. The availability of this kind of co-working and comparative research gathered in one book, however, rates “Economic Imperatives for Women’s Writing in Early Modern Europe” very highly."- Marija Bulatović, Knjiženstvo. Journal for Studies in Literature, Gender and Culture, 8, 2018."There is obviously interest in and need for studies on women writers, as this volume is only the second in the new “Women Writers in History” series at Brill. It seems likely that the editors’ call for more research both into professionalization of writing in the early modern period and to use a comparative approach will be answered. It truly seems like this is only the beginning of research into the careers of professional women writers and in trying to recover their status as writers, something their contemporaries often tried to diminish."- Valerie Schutte, EMWJ, Vol. 14 No. 2, 2020. "...the essays give proof of women’s increasing economic success in publishing and of their transnational contributions to the expanding book trade and demonstrate the changes from women’s dependence on patronage to professional status. Yet they also reveal that women’s social position improved slowly."- Anne Cruz, Renaissance Quarterly, 2021.

• AcknowledgementsNotes on Contributors1 Introduction: Women, Professionalisation, and Patronage Carme Font Paz and Nina Geerdink2 Women Authors’ Reputation and Its Relationship to Money Earned: Some Early French Writers as ExamplesSuzan van Dijk3 Words for Sale: Early Modern Spanish Women’s Literary EconomyNieves Baranda4 Fighting for Her Profession: Dorothe Engelbretsdatter’s Discourse of Self-DefenceMarie Nedregotten Sørbø5 Writing for Patronage or Patronage for Writing? Two Case Studies in Seventeenth-Century and Post-Restoration Women’s Poetry in BritainCarme Font Paz6 Possibilities of Patronage: The Dutch Poet Elisabeth Hoofman and Her German PatronsNina Geerdink7 Between Patronage and Professional Writing. The Situation of Eighteenth Century Women of Letters in Venice: The Example of Luisa Bergalli GozziRotraud von Kulessa8 From Queen’s Librarian to Voice of the Neapolitan Republic: Eleonora de Fonseca PimentelIrene Zanini-Cordi9 “[S]ome employment in the translating Way”: Economic Imperatives in Charlotte Lennox’s Career as a TranslatorMarianna D’Ezio10 Beating the Odds: Sophie Albrecht (1756–1840), a Successful Woman Writer and Publisher in Eighteenth-Century GermanyBerit C.R. RoyerIndex