title: Reading and HearingThe Womans Bookein Early Modern England.
abstract: This essay takes seriously Thomas Raynalde's advice in The Womans Booke that women might read this work aloud. The evidence I use to sketch the scene of reading includes Raynalde's advice to readers in his long prologue, and also the kind of reading practice that his own writing represents. But I also go outside the text, considering what we know about the experience of listening to a book, and emphasizing the link between this practice and rhetorical education. I also examine the evidence left behind by two male readers: William Ward, who marked his copy of the 1565 edition privately, and Edward Poeton of Petworth, who represented instead a semipublic or shared reading: the evaluation of The Womans Booke and other books of generation by a Midwife and her Deputy in a fictional dialogue "The Midwives Deputie" (ca. 1630s).
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Richards
mesh_terms: D004739:England; D005260:Female; D006309:Hearing; D049669:History, 16th Century; D049670:History, 17th Century; D006801:Humans; D000067010:Literacy; D008880:Midwifery / Q000266:history*; D011932:Reading; D013782:Textbooks as Topic / Q000266:history*; D014930:Women