This book focuses on an 80-year period that spawned extensive debate over the nature of women. In it, Woodbridge examines treaties and sermons, ballads, jests, plays and other genres of prose and verse. The result is an insightful and highly entertaining work, the first study of its kind to separate literary exercises from works reflecting actual social conditions and attitudes. -- Alison Tartt, Library Journal. Linda Woodbridge is a professor of English at the University of Alberta. She has published numerous articles, most notably, "Egyptian Queens and Male Reviewers." -- in journals such as Shakespeare Quarterly, English Miscellany, English Literary Renaissance, English Studies in Canada and Folklore.