Hannah Woolley, The Gentlewomans Companion; or, A Guide to the Female Sex (1673)

Michael Durrant (IES, University of London)

The title page of the 1673 self-help manual, The Gentlewomans Companion; or, A Guide to the Female Sex (ESTC, R204109), discreetly tucks “By Hannah Woolley” at the foot of the text’s long title, sandwiching “Woolley” between two rules and just above the imprint, where we find another female agent being marked out as a key player in this text’s making: “LONDON, Printed by A[nne] Maxwell [fl. 1660-1680] for Dorman Newman at  the Kings-Arms in the Poultry, 1673.”

As Martine van Elk has written elsewhere on this blog, Anne Maxwell’s involvement as the Companion’s printer seems fairly well assured, but Hannah Woolley’s involvement as the Companion’s author is rather less clear cut. For sure, Woolley was a likely candidate to be the author of a text that, to quote from the title page again, purports to contain “Directions of [female] Behaviour, in all Places, | Companies, Relations, and Conditions, from | their Childhood down to Old Age.” She had made a name for herself as an expert writer of recipes and matters to do with household management, and so there’s scope to imagine that Woolley really did branch out to pen the Companion, in which tips on cooking, cleaning, human hygiene and health jostle alongside prescriptions on proper female speech, conversation, gait and posture, and guidelines for the writing of letters. But really The Gentlewomans Companion seems to have been spurious, an attempt by its publisher, Newman, working alongside its printer, Maxwell, to cash in on the Woolley brand

Whilst it has been suggested that the Companion may have been based on an authentic Woolley manuscript,[1] Woolley would publicly disown the text soon after its publication in 1673, complaining in a dedicatory poem that accompanied A Supplement to the Queen-like Closet (1674) that her “Name” had been “much abus’d” by the Companion; Woolley had in fact been “far distant” when the Companion was printed; and since her authorial identity (her “Name”) had been appropriated without her consent, Woolley concludes by asserting “that Book to own I think not fit.”

The whole issue of appropriation—and with this, the idea of where early modern books come from—is addressed in the Companion’s epistle, “To all Young Ladies, Gentlewomen, and all Maidens whatever,” which is allegedly Woolley-authored. There, “Woolley” tells us that, given the commercial success of her other print products (“the first called, The Ladies Directory; the other, The Cooks Guide”), she had been encouraged by both her “Book-seller” and her “worthy Friends” (sig. A3^r) to write a more fulsome “Companion and Guide to the Female Sex” (sig. A3^v). Over the course of seven years, “Woolley” read and researched her way through several contemporary manuals on female instruction, including “that Excellent Book, The Queens Closet; May’s Cookery; The Ladies Companion,” her own “Directory and Guide,” as well as fashionable books “lately writ in the French and Italian Languages” (sig. A4^r-v). “Woolley” then settles on imagery associated with the painting of portraits to account for the way in which she actively folded words and ideas from these books into her own writing:

I hope the Reader will not think it much, that as the famous Lymner when he drew the Picture of an exact Beauty, made use of an Eye from one, of a Mouth from another, and so cull’d what was rare in all others, that he might present them all in one entire piece of Workmanship and Frame: So I, when I was to write of Physick and Chyrurgery, have consulted all Books I could meet with in that kind, to compleat my own Experiences (sig. A4^v–A5^r).  

Quoting the same passage, Leah Orr suggests that “[s]uch “culling” is very generally practiced [in the period] but rarely stated so forthrightly.”[2] Given Woolley’s own complaint that the Companion had actually “abus’d” (or we might say “cull’d) her “Name” and therefore her brand identity, there appears to be something cheekily self-referential at work here. Indeed, the “Lymner” imagery—and with this, the idea of an individual’s portrait being made of bits and pieces drawn from the bodies of other subjects—seems particularly pointed given the fact that the Companion was published alongside a paratextual portrait, which was supposed to be in the likeness of Woolley herself, but that was really a retouched image of someone else.

Turning now to the British Library’s (BL) copy of The Gentlewomans Companion (C.194.a.1455), we can see that the issues of appropriation I’ve been discussing find expression in evidence related to book use and competing claims to book ownership.

This copy lacks the suspect Woolley portrait, although on its title page we do find a seventeenth-century inscription, written in brownish ink, which designates female ownership: “Elizabeth Polwheile her booke.”

Writing for the BL’s “Untold Lives” blog, Beth Cortese suggests that this “Elizabeth Polwheile” is likely the Restoration playwright, Elizabeth Polwhele (c. 1651–1691), who was the author of at least two unpublished plays, The Faythfull Virgins (c. 1670) and The Frolicks, or The Lawyer Cheated (c. 1671). It’s an exciting possibility, because as Cortese points out, it would offer us a little glimpse into the library of a woman about whom we still know little, and her ownership of “Woolley’s” Gentlewomans Companion might suggest that this text was being used not only for educational purposes but perhaps also as one of Polwhele’s “literary influences”.

This scenario—that Polwhele read the BL’s copy of the Companion for the bits that could be “cull’d” to form the basis of her own writing—might explain the presence of two hand-drawn crosses (+) that are positioned in the margins of this book. Written in what appears to be the same brownish ink used to write the “Elizabeth Polwheile her booke” inscription, these marginal notations materialise in the concluding section of the book, where “Woolley” offers a suite of imaginary/stock “Letters upon all Occasions” (sig. Q3^v–S3^v). The first cross appears in the left-hand margin of “The Answer of an ingenious Lady” (sig. Q8^v). This letter serves as a reply to the preceding “Letter from one Lady to another, condemning Artificial-beauty” (sig. Q7^r–Q8^r), and it finds the “ingenious Lady” arguing for a woman’s right to wear cosmetics, and she fights back at prevailing stereotypes that linked the “Art in the imbellishing” with female “sin”, “pride” and “vanity” (sig. Q8^v). The second cross appears in the right-hand margin of “A Lady to her Daughter, perswading her from wearing Spots and Black-patches in her face” (sig. R2^r), in which another “Lady” adopts an entirely antithetical line, neurotically linking cosmetics and female fashions with libertine excess and therefore with “the vices of this present age.”

I don’t know for sure whether these two crosses were put there by Polwhele, but if she is responsible for these markings, perhaps it’s evidence of her reaching into “Woolley’s” Companion to mark-up moments that might be usefully appropriated within the contexts of her own dramaturgy—serving, say, as a source for ready-made dialogues between female characters who could represent competing forms of femininity.

So, a book that seems to have appropriated the Woolley brand, and a book that, at the same time, draws attention to rather than obscures its own literary appropriations and borrowings, may have become a site of creative appropriation for at least one female Restoration playwright. But then returning to the title page of the BL’s copy of The Gentlewomans Companion, we find another, later hand reaching into the text to mark out another identity, another form of ownership, and with this, another layer of appropriation.

Just under the “Elizabeth Polwheile her booke” statement, a male hand has inserted the word “formerly”; just below that, the same hand then adds that Polwhele’s book “is now the property of Edmund Hopkinson”—that is, Edmund Hopkinson (1787–1869) of Edgeworth Manor House near Cirencester, who was the High Sheriff in Gloucestershire. An avid collector of antiquities—including, by all accounts, an Egyptian mummy, which he unwrapped during a dinner party before donating to the Gloucester Museum in the 1850s—Hopkinson steps in to appropriate the title page of The Gentlewomans Companion as a space to enact his own masculinist (self-)possession. Nudging Polwhele to the side, the book seems to become Hopkinson’s “property,” but in the case of The Gentlewomans Companion, where issues of possession and attribution and appropriation seem to be constantly shifting and recalibrating, such an assertion is really more complex than it might first appear.

Source: copy held at the British Library, shelf mark C.194.a.1455. Photos by Michael Durrant, reproduced with permission.

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[1] See Margaret J.M. Ezell, “Cooking the Books; or, The Three Faces of Hannah Woolley,” in Reading and Writing Recipe Books, 1550–1800, ed. by Michelle DiMeo and Sara Pennell (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), pp. 159–78.

[2] Leah Orr, Publishing the Woman Writer in England, 1670-1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), p. 61. 

Seven Sisters’ Books from the Seventeenth-Century Southern Low Countries

By Ynys Convents, Ellen Gommers, Sebastiaan Peeters, Emma Ten Doesschate,
and Patricia Stoop (University of Antwerp)

Women’s contribution to the literary culture of the early modern Low Countries is still very much underexposed. Fascinating research done in recent years has not yet reached the general public. Many other sources have not been studied thus far. Therefore, students of Dutch at the University of Antwerp studied seven early printed books from the seventeenth century that are preserved in the library of the Ruusbroec Institute of the University of Antwerp (https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/research-groups/ruusbroec-institute/library/). Each of these religious books can be linked to women in at least two ways. They dealt with women’s exemplary lives, were written or printed by or dedicated to them, and, at a later stage, found their way to female owners. In this blogpost we present the students’ findings.

Theresa of Ávila as a Source of Inspiration

The works of the influential Spanish mystic, saint, and Doctor of the Church Theresa of Ávila (1515–1582) became widespread across Europe soon after her death, partly under the influence of the Counter-Reformation. Her reformed ideas that led to the foundation of the Order of Discalced Carmelites in 1562 also reached the Catholic part of the Netherlands. Several of her texts were translated — sometimes indirectly via French — into Dutch. The Bibliography of the Hand Press Book in Flanders (STCV: Short Title Catalogue Vlaanderen; https://vlaamse-erfgoedbibliotheken.be/en/dossier/short-title-catalogue-flanders-stcv/stcv) lists seventeen different Dutch-language books, some of which were printed multiple times. In addition, several of her texts in Spanish, French, and Latin were also distributed in the Southern Netherlands.

Figure 1: Theresa of Ávila inspired by the Holy Spirit. Hand-colored engraving by M[aria?] Volders (active in Antwerp between 1669 and 1688) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, RG–PC H1: Theresa of Jesus (unnumbered)).

The Bruydegoms vrede-kus oft Bemerckingen vande liefde Godts (Bridegroom’s Peace-Kiss or Reflections on the Love of God), in which Theresa described various sorts of prayer, was printed in 1647 by the widow of the Antwerp printer Jan Cnobbaert (1590–1637). The work was annotated by the Spanish Carmelite Jerónimo Gracián (1545–1614), Theresa’s spiritual mentor. The Discalced Carmelite Antonius of Jesus produced the Dutch translation at St Joseph’s Convent in Antwerp (as he did for many of her other works). He dedicated the translation to Françoise de Bette (1593–1666), who was the abbess of the Benedictine convent in Vorst near Brussels from 1637 until her death.

In 1687 Hieronymus Verdussen V (1650–1717) printed Den catechismus van S.te Theresia (The Catechism of St Theresa) in Antwerp. According to the title page, Petrus Thomas a S. Maria (1611–1686), a Discalced Carmelite from Normandy, gathered the spiritual teachings “uyt de Schriften ende eygen Woorden vande selve Heylige” (“from the writings and own words of the same saint”). He published the result in French in Rouen in 1672. His French version was translated by a person who only left his initials M. AE. S. in the Antwerp edition and therefore cannot be identified.

Additionally, the library of the Ruusbroec Institute keeps a Dutch translation of Theresa’s biography by the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Ribera (1537–1591). The Spanish version (La vida de la madre Teresa de Iesus) was published in Salamanca in 1590. The anonymous Dutch translation, entitled Het leven der H. Moeder Terese van Iesus fundaterse vande barvoetsche carmeliten ende carmeliterssen (The Life of the Holy Mother Theresa of Jesus, Founder of the Discalced Carmelites), was printed in Antwerp thirty years later by Joachim Trognesius (between 1556 and 1559–1624). Whether the translation was made directly from Spanish or, as in the previous example, from French is not clear. It is certain, however, that a French version by the Carmelite Jean de Brétigny (1556–1634) and the Carthusian Guillaume de Chèvre circulated in the Netherlands: the 1607 edition of La vie de la mere Terese de Jesus was published in Antwerp by Gaspar Bellerus (fl. 1606–1617).

The Lives of Spiritual Virgins

Some inspirational women from the Low Countries also helped shape literary and devotional culture. We know a great deal about them because they documented their lives and religious experiences extensively in diaries and correspondences with their confessors. Based on this auto-biographical documentation, their Lives were written. The Jesuit Daniël Huysmans (1643–1704), for example, wrote biographies of Agnes van Heilsbagh (1597–1640) and Joanna van Randenraedt (1610–1684), who were both spiritual daughters — unmarried women who wanted to lead a religious life, often under the spiritual guidance of Jesuits, without joining a convent. Both Agnes and Johanna lived in Roermond in Limburg (nowadays located in the Netherlands) and were involved in education and the promotion of Christian values. Their biographies in Huysmans’s versions were printed in Antwerp shortly after each other. Kort begryp des levens ende der deughden vande weerdighe Joanna van Randenraedt (Short Account of the Life and Virtues of the Honorable Joanna van Randenraedt) was published and printed in 1690 by Augustinus Great (fl. 1685–1691); Leven ende deughden vande weerdighe Agnes van Heilsbagh (Live and Virtues of the Honorable Agnes Heilsbagh) appeared a year later and was printed by Michiel Knobbaert (fl. 1652–1706). Huysmans integrated the letters of both spiritual daughters into his Lives, which allowed the voices of these women to resonate distinctly in his texts.

Figure 2: Title page of Daniël Huysmans, Leven ende deughden vande weerdighe Agnes van Heilsbagh with her Portrait (Antwerp: Michiel Knobbaert, 1691) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 4050 A 12).

Finally, the Carmelite tertiary and mystic Maria Petyt (1623–1677) wrote an autobiography and corresponded with her spiritual counsellor Michael a Sancto Augustino (1621–1684). He published Maria’s texts posthumously in Het leven vande weerdighe moeder Maria a S.ta Teresia, (alias) Petyt, Vanden derden Reghel vande Orden der Broederen van Onse L. Vrouwe des berghs Carmeli (The life of the honorable mother Maria a Sancta Teresa, (alias) Petyt, from the Third Rule of the Order of the Brethren of Our Lady of the Mount Carmel), which came out in Ghent in 1683. Michael claims not to have modified any of Maria’s words in his four-volume publication of no fewer than 1,500 pages. He, however, added a short introduction to each chapter.

Books in Women’s Hands

These works by and about women were often destined for a female readership. This is evident from the many ownership inscriptions we discovered. Most of the books ended up in female communities. Theresa of Ávila’s Bruydegoms vrede-kus, for instance, belonged to Catrijn de Roos, who lived “opt groodt begijn hof” (“in the large beguinage”; fly leaf at the front) of an, unfortunately, unspecified town. Some of the books belonged to Alexian sisters (“zwartzusters”). The Life of Agnes van Heilsbagh was owned by her namesake Agnes Vandervloet, who lived in the Alexian community in Antwerp. Het leven der H. Moeder Terese van Iesus was kept in the convent of Alexian sisters in Ypres for no fewer than 175 years. It was donated to the community by Nicolais Reynier in 1624 (Figure 4). There, Sister Catalijn van der Bogaerde owned it. A note at the end of the book further shows that in 1788 it was still in the convent, now being kept by Sister Theresia Verbeke.

Figure 3: Ownership inscriptions on the title page of Francisco Ribera, Het leven der H. Moeder Terese van Iesus (Antwerp: Joachim Trognesius, 1620) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3053 C 20 gamma).

Besloten hof, het innigh ghebedt betuynt met de doornen-haghe der verstervinghe (Enclosed Garden, the Inner Prayer Bordered with the Thorny Hedge of Mortification) (Antwerp: Arnout van Brakel, 1665) is associated with two female communities. It is dedicated to Maria van Praet (d. 1668), who at the time of publication was “hooftmeestesse” (“grand mistress”) of the beguinage of Antwerp. Later, the book ended up in a women’s convent (possibly of Discalced Carmelite nuns) in Willebroek, a little town south of Antwerp. The ownership inscriptions at the fly leaf at the front show how the book was passed from person to person within the convent, presumably after the previous owner died. Under Sister Theresia Helman’s name the inscription “Requiescat in Pace” was added, and Sister Joanna van Luijtelaer’s name was followed by the abbreviation “R.I.P.”. Presumably Sister Anna t’Kint, who wrote her name at the top of the page, was the book’s new owner.

Figure 4: Title page of Besloten hof, het innigh ghebedt betuynt met de doornen-hage der verstervinghe and ownership inscriptions of three sisters (Antwerp: Arnout van Brakel, 1665) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3079 D 14).

Some books were more likely owned by secular women. Den catechismus van S.te Theresia, for instance, is said to have been in the possession of “Joanna Chaterina Roovers woonende in de Copper straet inden wieten engel” (“Joanna Chaterina Roovers living in the Copperstraet in the White Angel”; fly leaf at the front). Unfortunately, it is not clear where the Copperstraet was. The third volume of Het leven vande weerdighe moeder Maria a s.ta Teresia, (alias) Petyt can be located more precisely. It was owned by Joanna Francisca van der Eijnde who lived “op den tribunael tot Mechelen” (“at the tribunal in Mechelen”; fly leaf at the front). She probably belonged to a family of painters whose members lived and worked as porters in that same tribunal (the court of justice). Remarkably, Arnold Frans Van den Eynde (1793–1885), a possible family member of Joanna Francisca, painted the Carmelite convent in Mechelen where Maria Petyt lived as an anchorite in the last phase of her life.

Towards an Inclusive Literary History

Our exploratory research in the library of the Ruusbroec Institute shows the importance of research into handwritten inscriptions in printed books. It shows that there is still a world to discover when it comes to the relationship between women and (religious) book culture in the early modern period. Both religious and secular women participated in the production, reception, and circulation of seventeenth-century printed books in many different ways. In several books, women’s spiritual ideas were passed on by men who wanted to make their voices heard. Books were dedicated to women or put out to print by them. Many copies reached female audiences. In some cases, we find that books were passed down from woman to woman for generations.

Our work also underlines again the importance of enhancing access to heritage collections and making material evidence in individual copies available. A systematic exploration of early printed book collections will bring visibility to large numbers of women. Provenance data in early printed books can teach us which women read and wrote or were otherwise involved in the book culture of their time. Such data can also be used to discover what women read, for what reason, and in what context. It is this type of research into women’s books that will help us eventually to construct an inclusive history of early modern Dutch literature.

Note: This blogpost was developed within the module “Women and early modern literature” of the BA-course “Dutch Studies in Practice” (“Neerlandistiek in de praktijk”) of the Language and Literature program of the University of Antwerp. The research was carried out by Noah Claassen, Ynys Convents, Kevin De Laet, Ellen Gommers, Ingeborg de Heer, Eline Heyvaert, Joran Jacobs, Anouck Kuypers, Sebastiaan Peeters, Jade Simoens, Emma Ten Doesschate, Cynthia Thielen, Lotte Van Grimberge, and Jens Van Reet, under the supervision of Tine De Koninck and Patricia Stoop. The text was written by Ynys Convents, Ellen Gommers, Sebastiaan Peeters, Emma Ten Doesschate, and Patricia Stoop.

Source: Books held by the Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, Antwerp. All images reproduced with permission.

Printed books studied

Besloten hof, het innigh ghebedt betuynt met de doornen-hage der verstervinghe (Antwerp: Arnout van Brakel, 1665) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, RG 3079 D 14).

[Daniël Huysmans], Kort begryp des levens ende der deughden vande weerdighe Joanna van Randenraedt (Antwerp: Augustinus Graet, 1690) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3054 H 3 gamma).

[Daniël Huysmans], Leven ende deughden vande weerdighe Agnes van Heilsbagh (Antwerp: Michiel Knobbaert, 1691) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 4050 A 12).

Den catechismus van S.te Theresia (Antwerp: Hieronymus Verdussen V, [1687]) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3018 I 23bis).

Francisco Ribera, La vida de la madre Teresa de Iesus, fundadora de las Descalças, y Descalços Carmelitas (Salamanca: Pedro Lasso, 1590).

Francisco Ribera, La vie de la mere Terese de Jesus, Fondatrice des Carmes dechaussez (Antwerp: Gaspar Bellerus, 1607).

Francisco Ribera, Het leven der H. Moeder Terese van Iesus fundaterse vande barvoetsche carmeliten ende carmeliterssen (Antwerp: Joachim Trognesius, 1620) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3053 C 20 gamma).

Michael a Sancto Augustino, Derde deel van het leven vande weerdighe moeder Maria a S.ta Teresia, (alias) Petyt, Vanden derden Reghel vande Orden der Broederen van Onse L. Vrouwe des berghs Carmeli (Ghent: heirs of Jan vanden Kerchove, 1683) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, 3017 C 1 2/1).

Theresa van Ávila, Bruydegoms vrede-kus oft Bemerckinghen vande liefde Godts (Antwerp: Weduwe van Jan Cnobbaert, 1647) (Antwerp, Library of the Ruusbroec Institute, RG 3018 C 18, 1^e ex).

Trotti de La Chétardie, Instructions for a Young Nobleman, or, The Idea of a Person of Honour (1683)

This 1683 English translation of Trotti de La Chétardie’s conduct book for young noblemen is inscribed not by a man, but by Sarah Walcot, whose ownership inscription on the book’s front blank leaf appears to date from the 18th century. There is also an inscription from a Sarah Walcot in The Folger Shakespeare Library’s copy of A Helpe to Discourse, or, A Miscelany of Seriousnesse with Merriment (1631, STC 1551.35), though it is not clear whether the two individuals are the same.

The bookseller “S. Magnes” in the imprint of Instructions for a Young Nobleman is Susanna Magnes, about whom little is known.

Source: Book offered for sale by Bernard Quaritch, 1/4/19. Images used with permission.

Samuel Moore, Theosplanchnistheis. Or, The Yernings of Christs bowels towards his languishing Friends (1648)

Many women owned religious tracts, such as this rather oddly-titled one by Samuel Moore, which is bound with two others also by him.  The title page indicates that the book was sold by Hanna Allen at her shop The Crown, in Pope’s Head Alley, London.  She was the widow of Benjamin Allen, also a bookseller and printer, who specialized in political and religious tracts, while she produced mainly religious ones.  She worked alone from 1647 until 1650 when she married her husband’s former apprentice, Livewell Chapman, a union which evidently lasted only three years.

Ann Ashfold, an early owner, wrote her name several times on a front flyleaf, along with a popular verse: “Ann Ashfold har boock god give har grace their in to look and when the bel for har doth toll lord jesus christ resev har soule.”  The “Ann Peters” who also appears could be her married name, as the handwriting is similar.  “Mary” also added her claim.

Source: The Folger Shakespeare Library, shelf mark 143- 987q.  Photographs by Georgianna Ziegler.