The Paston Women: Selected Letters

The Paston letters form one of only two surviving collections of fifteenth-century correspondence, in their case especially rich in letters from the women of the family. Clandestine love affairs, secret marriages, violent family rows, bickering with neighbours, battles and sieges, threats of murder and kidnapping, fears of plague: these are just some of the topics discussed in the letters of the Paston women. Diane Watts introduction seeks to place these letters in the context of medieval womens writing and and medieval letter writing. Her interpretive essay reconstructs the lives of these women by examining what the letters reveal about womens literacy and education, life in the medieval household, religion and piety, health and medicine, and love, marriage, family relationships, and female friendships in the middle ages. DIANE WATT is Professor of English at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

About the author

Diane Watt is Professor of English at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Secretaries of God won the 1998 Foster Watson Memorial Gift.

Product details

• Authors: Diane Watt
• Assisted by: Diane Watt (Editor)
• Publisher: D. S. Brewer
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2004
• No. of pages: 192
• Dimensions: 141 mm x 215 mm x 12 mm
• Weight: 256 g
• Series: Library of Medieval Women,
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies