Translation and editing of eight volumes in the series "The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe."

Ten editors/translators are preparing English editions of nine projects comprising texts written in Italian, French, and Spanish from the late 1300s to the late 1600s by both women and men in a variety of genres, including lyric and epic poetry, romances in prose and poetry, novellas in the form of fairy tales, devotional literature, and debates in the querelle des femmes tradition. Many of these materials are presented in anthologies. One contains devotional literature produced by women in the cities and towns of Italy--ecstatic visions and revelations, biographies and autobiographies, personal letters, and more; as well as prescriptive and normative models enunciated for women by male preachers. Two anthologies of texts by Italian men add to our appreciation in English of humanist contributions to "the woman question," one comprising five treatises praising women (1467-1501), the other a number of essays criticizing women (1540-1600) which drew responses from a number of Italian women. Two other anthologies collect fairy tales, the first written by an Italian man containing tales attributed to women, the second by French women making explicit the female nature of this genre (as it was regarded at the time). Four projects are devoted to one woman writer each, all belonging to the seventeenth century. Two are romances, one an epic written in poetry pitting Christian Venice against Muslim Byzantium, the other a prose narrative that pushes romance toward the realistic novel. A third project is a compilation of texts by and to a Venetian Jewish intellectual woman. A fourth is writing in various genres by a well-educated Spanish nun. These projects are part of a much larger undertaking: the publication of works by and about early modern continental European women by the University of Chicago Press in the series "The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe." The series now stands at 68 volumes (21 published to date), and promises to grow even larger. Another tradition is being recovered that will make the established one both larger and more inclusive.