Dorothy Leigh

01 January 1575 - 01 January 1616

Standard Name: Leigh, Dorothy

Birth Name: Dorothy Kempe

Married Name: Dorothy Leigh

Of the seventeenth-century authors of mothers' legacies for their children, DL was the earliest to reach print, and probably the most morally and theologically focussed. Writing for sons, not daughters, she gives clear and firm instructions about personal conduct (choosing a wife, for example) and about making a contribution to the community of Christian people, either by becoming a minister or by praying for better preaching and better leadership. Her work includes an accomplished poem.

Full profile

Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Reception	Elizabeth Joscelin	EJ has, curiously, attracted less critical attention than Dorothy Leigh (whom Sylvia Brown believes to have been an influence on her writing) Leigh, Dorothy et al. Women’s Writing in Stuart England. Editor Brown, Sylvia, Sutton, 1999. 98-9 or Elizabeth Richardson , but Teresa Feroli published an article on her...
Textual Features	Elizabeth Grymeston	EG 's prefatory epistle offers advice on the conduct of his life to her son Bernye, and further good counsel is prominent. This book (which also includes poems and prayers) is both the earliest extant...

Timeline

1627

An anonymous book appeared at London entitled A Mothers Teares over Hir Seduced Sonne (seduced not sexually but by the Catholic faith away from the Protestant).

English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.

By 1630

Scottish book-collector, letter-writer, and possibly poet Lilias Grant had a catalogue compiled of her library of twenty-eight mostly pious books, including The Mothers Blessing by Dorothy Leigh (first published in 1616).

Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.

Texts

Richardson, Elizabeth et al. “A Ladies Legacie to Her Daughters”. Women’s Writing in Stuart England, edited by Sylvia Brown, Sutton, 1999, pp. 157-8.

Joscelin, Elizabeth et al. “Elizabeth Joscelin’s Manuscript Mother’s Legacy”. Women’s Writing in Stuart England, edited by Sylvia Brown, Sutton, 1999, pp. 106-39.

Leigh, Dorothy. The Mothers Blessing. John Budge, 1616.

Leigh, Dorothy et al. “The Mothers Blessing”. Women’s Writing in Stuart England, edited by Sylvia Brown, Sutton, 1999, pp. 15-87.

Leigh, Dorothy et al. Women’s Writing in Stuart England. Editor Brown, Sylvia, Sutton, 1999.