As we have seen on this blog, women owned all kinds of books in the early modern period, including plays. Although we cannot date this particular signature with any degree of certainty, Mary Feltham wrote it in a copy (presumably hers) of a collection of plays by the popular playwright Richard Brome, published in 1653. Rather than putting her signature on the title page, she put it above the Letter “to the Readers” by the person who put the collection together, the royalist poet Alexander Brome (who was not related to the playwright). Thus, she marks herself as one of the readers to whom the letter is addressed.
Credit: Early English Playbooks, 1594-1799. Owned by the Boston Public Library. Public Domain.
Early Modern Female Book Ownership 