Publisher description
The three works included in this volume are variants of a category
identified by Elaine Beilin as "Mothers' Advice Books". One of the sub-genres
of courtesy literature, they are written by mothers instructing their children
in religious, educational and, occasionally, worldly matters. Although many
advice books survive from the 16th and 17th centuries, most of these were
written by men and were concerned with policy and polite conduct. Many men also
wrote books of advice specifically for their children, including Sir Walter
Raleigh - "Instructions to his Sonne and to Posteritie (1632) and Francis
Osborne - "Advice to a Son" (1656). Mothers' advice books were more
unusual. Written by women speaking from their authorized positions as mothers, they
offer an alternative to the many male-authored conceptualizations of the family
from the period. They are important because they provide an example of women
writing within a socially sanctioned area. The fact that they were mothers (as
well as the fact that most of them died before publication) gave them an
authority to write not granted easily to others. Although they feign a private
voice, many of the works were clearly written with an eye to publication. In a
period that sought to limit female authority to the domestic sphere, it was
precisely the domestic role of mother that allowed women entrance into the
public sphere represented by publication. The author, then, shows the mothers'
advice book as a genre which at once violates and yet replicates patriarchal
dictates. The three works included in this volume are variants of a category
identified by Elaine Beilin as "Mothers' Advice Books". One of the sub-genres
of courtesy literature, they are written by mothers instructing their children
in religious, educational and, occasionally, worldly matters.
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Mother's Advice Books
Book reviews » Mother's Advice Books (Early Modern Englishwoman: a Facsimile Library of Essential Works)
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