Seventeenth-Century Mother's Advice Books

While the domestic sphere dominated the lives of seventeenth-century English women, the authors of mother's advice books used their roles as mothers to enter the public arena of publication. This work is a sourcebook of the genre including popular mother's advice books, historical and cultural information of the period, and an edition of a previously unknown mother's advice book Age Rectified. While early mother's advice books focus on lessons of piety, self-sacrifice and chastity for women, Age Rectified advises mothers to rear their children to become rational and caring adults who will care for their aged mothers. Since Age Rectified was attributed to "one of the same sex," textual evidence and biographical information form the basis of the authorship argument for the unnamed author of Age Rectified, Lady Anne Brockman.