A microhistory of a never-married English gentlewoman named Elizabeth Isham, this book centres on an extremely rare piece of women's writing - a recently discovered 60,000-word spiritual autobiography held in Princeton's manuscript collections that she penned around 1639. The autobiography is unmatched in providing an inside view of her family relations, her religious beliefs, her reading habits and, most sensationally, the reasons why she chose never to marry despite desires to the contrary held by her male kin, particularly Sir John Isham, her father. Based on the autobiography, combined with extensive research of the Isham family papers now housed at the county record office in Northampton, this book restores our historical memory of Elizabeth and her female relations, expanding our understanding and knowledge about patriarchy, piety and singlehood in early modern England. -- .
| ISBN: | 9781784991432 |
| Publication date: | 14th July 2016 |
| Author: | Isaac Stephens |
| Publisher: | Manchester University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 288 pages |
| Series: | Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain |
| Genres: |
History and Archaeology General and world history European history: medieval period, middle ages |