Publishing the Woman Writer in England, 1670-1750

In the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the 'woman writer' emerged as a category of authorship in England. Publishing the Woman Writer in England, 1670-1750 seeks to uncover how exactly this happened and the ways publishers tried to market a new kind of author to the public. Based on a survey of nearly seven hundred works with female authors from this period, this book contends that authorship was constructed, not always by the author, for market appeal, that biography often supported an authorial persona rooted in the genre of the work, and that authorship was a role rather than an identity.

Through an emphasis on paratexts, including prefaces, title pages, portraits, and biographical notes, Leah Orr analyses the representation of women writers in this period of intense change to make two related arguments. First, women writers were represented in a variety of ways as publishers sought successful models for a new kind of writer in print. Second, a new approach is needed for studying early women writers and others who occupy gaps in the historical record. This book shows that a study of the material contexts of printed books is one way to work with the evidence that survives. It therefore begins with a very familiar kind of author-centric literary history and deconstructs it to conclude with a reception-centered history that takes a more encompassing view of authorship. In addition to analysis of many little-known and anonymous authors, case studies include Aphra Behn, Catharine Trotter/Cockburn, Laetitia Pilkington, Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, and Anne Dacier.

Leah Orr, Associate Professor of English, University of Louisiana, Lafayette

Leah Orr is Associate Professor of English at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, where she is the current holder of the Joseph P. Montiel Professorship in English. She is the author of Novel Ventures: Fiction and Print Culture in England, 1690-1730 (2017), and has published articles on book history, women writers, reception studies, and the novel in the long eighteenth century.