Women Proprietors of Copyright in England, 1675–1775

Leah Orr is Professor of English at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. She works on fiction, women writers, and the book trade in the long eighteenth century and is the author of two books, most recently Publishing the Woman Writer in England, 1670–1750 (2023).

• Preface1 Legalities: Was Literary Property Really Property?1 Women in the Standard Story of the Emergence of Copyright2 Women and Patents in the Book Trade3 Women Producers and Rights to Their Creation2 Women Authors as Owners3 Women Legatees as Owners4 Women Proprietors in the Stationers’ Company1 Restoration Women in the Stationers’ Registers2 Eighteenth-Century Women and the Stationers: Mary Cooper3 Women outside the Trade in the Register5 Women at Book Trade Sales1 Copyrights Belonging to Elizabeth Pawlett (1720)2 Copyrights Belonging to Mary Matthews (1720)3 Copyrights Belonging to Christian Bowyer (1736)4 Mary Cooper as a Purchaser at Trade Sales5 Private Sales among the Trade6 Women in Court1 Using Patents as a Proxy for Copyright: Elizabeth Nutt2 Establishing a Legacy: Mary WellingtonConclusionBibliographyIndex