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Gender, commerce and the Restoration book trade: mapping the bookscape of Hannah Wolley’s The Ladies Directory (1661)

Gender, commerce and the Restoration book trade: mapping the bookscape of Hannah Wolley’s The Ladies Directory (1661)

Pennell, Sara ORCID: 0000-0002-2594-4601 (2024) Gender, commerce and the Restoration book trade: mapping the bookscape of Hannah Wolley’s The Ladies Directory (1661). Book History, 27 (1). pp. 1-31. ISSN 1098-7371 (Print), 1529-1499 (Online) (doi:https://doi.org/10.1353/bh.2024.a929571)

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Abstract

This article provides the first account and analysis of the publication of Hannah Wolley (c.1622-c.in or after 1674), the prolific but understudied author of five different domestic manuals between 1661 and 1674. The publication of The Ladies Directory in 1661 and its reprinting in 1662 provide the context for an exploration of the opportunities and challenges facing a first-time female 'Authress' (as Wolley was described on the title page) being published. As a non-elite but educated working woman, Wolley did not fit the mould of her female published precursors, and nor did the format and contents of her texts. This study shows how Wolley and other stakeholders in the production of The Ladies Directory navigated a challenging period in English book production, through conceiving the book as the first instalment in a series of domestic texts that could be printed separately but bound together; and argues that she used print as but one strand of her commercial 'offer', alongside private tuition and selling readymade medications.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Hannah Wolley; Book history; cookery writing; print trade; gender history; seventeenth-century London; women's writing
Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences > School of Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS)
Last Modified: 04 Jul 2024 09:23
URI: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/44770

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