Medical Authority and Englishwomen's Herbal Texts, 1550–1650

The first study to analyze print vernacular folio herbals from the standpoint of gender and to present original findings to do with early modern women's ownership of these herbals, Medical Authority and Englishwomen's Herbal Texts also looks at reasons and contexts behind early modern female writers claiming herbal practice. Author Rebecca Laroche first establishes cultural backdrops in the gendering of medical authority that takes place in the herbals and the regular ownership of these herbals by women. She then examines women's engagements with herbal texts in life writings and poetry and asks how these moments represent and engage medical authority. In ultimately demonstrating how female writers variously take on women's herbal medical practices, Laroche reveals the broad range of literary potentials within the historical category of women's medicine.

Contents: Introduction: medical authority and Englishwomen's herbal texts, 1550-1650; 'This manlike worke of herbes': gender and the English herbal; Inscriptions in herbal texts and the location of medical authority; Gentlewomen's herbal readings and the absent-present physicians; Isabella Whitney's herbs: print medical texts and London satire; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.

Rebecca Laroche is Associate Professor of English and Department Chair at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, USA.