ABSTRACT
Dorothy Leigh was a Puritan advocate for vernacular Bible reading and the literacy that enabled it. Leigh's activism is expressed in gendered language and actions, for she figures the labours of the 'unlearned' reader of vernacular Scripture through women's domestic and maternal work. In her advocacy for vernacular Bible reading, Dorothy Leigh takes a stand that is at once feminine and Puritan, maternal and political. Regularly acknowledged by humanists to be influential teachers of morality, literate mothers could certainly be involved in rudimentary instruction in literacy. Despite the theological value accorded vernacular reading, it occupied a socially conflicted position because of its association with the household and mother. Dorothy Leigh begins her apology for vernacular Bible reading in the initial chapters of her book, where she aligns the intellectual and spiritual work of reading and writing with the fruitfulness of domestic labour.
