Elizabeth Tanfield Cary’s History of Edward II

The full texts of both 1680 editions of Elizabeth Cary’s History of Edward II are here reproduced completely, along with an extensive introduction including biographical, cultural, and literary commentary on Elizabeth Cary, and also background on the debate surrounding the texts’ authorship. In the recovery of women writers of early modern England, Elizabeth Tanfield Cary, Viscountess Falkland, has drawn substantial interest. Swan examines the post-publication history of both 1680 editions, revealing how the many hands at work in various subsequent editions have resulted in the obfuscation of the textual history, which has, in the past, led to the misattribution of the history to Henry Cary, Elizabeth’s husband. The reproduction of both versions allows scholars to easily compare the two, which is important in order to understand Cary’s reworking of her text from early to late drafts. Both versions represent intentions and socially received states which are useful in presenting the text, in documenting Cary’s changing attitudes and discursive strategies in the mid-1620’s-the period of composition for all the manuscript states and a period of particular biographical significance-and in accounting for the more recent reception of the history. Swan showcases here how Cary contributes significantly both to the development of resistance theory (essential to democratic-republican ideals at the root of Anglo-American politics and government), and to the development of non-fiction prose style in English. This volume will be of interest to literary scholars working on Early Modern women as well as to historians and queer theorists, both of whom have made Edward II an important intellectual site in the last generation of scholarship.