Introduction

The bloodlines and books, 'The Great Picture' attests to the identity of Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery. The central panel of the triptych registers her family heritage. The painting's books carry the multiplicity of Anne Clifford's interactions with early modern culture. Although her efforts to regain her inheritance resisted dictates of wifely subjection, this self-representation is not 'transgressive' in any straightforward sense. Articulating her cultural literacy, the library situates Anne Clifford within aristocratic society as one of its learned members. Literacy rates were in flux, for the practices of literacy and the ideologies around reading and writing were shifting quite dramatically in relation to other religious, economic, and social changes. There is substantial evidence that the rate of reading literacy increased significantly in the early modern period. Although reading is central to the learning process, early modern education is a somewhat different category of activity than reading.