Women and the Book Trade in Sixteenth-Century France

Focusing on the vastly understudied area of how women participated in the book trades as patrons, copyists, illuminators, publishers, editors and readers, this study foregrounds contributions made by women during a period of profound transformation in the modes and understanding of publication.

Innovatively, Broomhall here broadens the concept of publication to include methods of scribal publication, through the circulation and presentation of manuscripts, and expands notions of authorship to incorporate a wide sample group of female writers and publishing experiences.

The work presents the only checklist of all known women's writings in printed texts between 1488 and 1599.