From the first, the early-modern midwifery manual was a cross-cultural phenomenon. Disseminated in cheap octavo formats and in vernacular translations, they were an accessible source of information an
Between 1540 and 1654, The Byrth of Mankynde was a huge commercial success. Offering information on fertility, pregnancy, birth, and infant care, and written in a chatty, colloquial style, it influenc
During a period when writing was often the only form of self-expression for women, Her Own Life contains extracts from the autobiographical texts of twelve seventeenth-century women addressing a wide
