The Mothers Legacy to Her Vnborn Childe

The mother’s advice book represents a distinctly female literary genre appearing in seventeenth-century England. According to the conventions of this form, a mother leaves written instructions, of a predominantly spiritual nature, as a legacy to her children. The Mothers Legacy, written by Elizabeth Joscelin, is particularly significant for its documentation of ideas about women’s education, authorship, and spirituality. With her writing, the author inscribes a distinctly female Protestant perspective. Moreover, as a highly self-conscious text, sophisticated in its use of rhetoric and passionately eloquent, The Mothers Legacy is an important example of Renaissance devotional writing. This popular book was reprinted seven times in the eleven years following its first appearance in 1624 and its appeal endured through to the end of the nineteenth century.

The text is presented as a parallel edition of the original holograph and facing printed version. This comparative format allows for a discussion of the transmission and alteration of the original manuscript and provides a unique insight into the changes made by a male editor to a text written by a woman. The edition also includes an appendix of nineteenth-century introductions to the work, and an extensive bibliography.