Women and Medieval Literary Culture: From the Early Middle Ages to the Fifteenth Century, co-edited by Diane Watt and Corinne Saunders, has won a prestigious 2024 Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Titles. This volume arose out of the Leverhulme funded International Network, Women’s Literary Culture and the Medieval Canon.

The volume was described by CHOICE in the following terms:

‘Saunders (Durham Univ., UK) and Watt (Univ, of Surrey, UK) have compiled an impressive collection of essays that provide new and substantive evidence that women actively read and wrote both religious and secular literature during the medieval period (c. 11th-15th centuries) more extensively than traditionally assumed by historians and literary scholars. This is a particularly important addition to the field of medieval women’s literary culture because it includes not only ubiquitous women like Christine de Pizan, Margery Kempe, Marie de France, and Eleanor of Aquitaine but also an array of less-known women writers and literary patrons. Although focused mostly on writers in England, the essays show the women engaged with Latin, French, German, Welsh, Gaelic, and even Arabic literary traditions, thereby creating a robust international literary culture among women across varying backgrounds in an evolving English nation. Contributors are leading scholars in medieval literature and medieval women’s studies, and the book boasts extensive reference notes, illustrations, manuscript examples, an almost exhaustive bibliography, and suggestions for further reading-making this book a treasure trove for medieval scholars, especially those focused on medieval women’s literary studies.

Summing Up: ★★★ Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.’

-D. V Dominguez, emerita, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

More information here.