Introduction

Over the past twenty years or so, the work of scholars such as Peter Beal, Henry W oudhuysen, Arthur Marotti, Mary Hobbs and Harold Love has led to a rapid expansion in the study of early modem English manuscripts. As a result of such work, scholars and critics are now more aware than ever before of the important part played by 'manuscript culture' in the British Isles in this period. Women's involvement in this milieu has been analysed in the ground-breaking work of Margaret Ezell, and in an increasing number of articles by scholars in this emerging field. Most anthologies of Renaissance women's writing, such as, most recently, Peter Davidson's and Jane Stevenson's magisterial Early Modem Women Poets, now include many manuscript texts, a trend pioneered by Germaine Greer and her coeditors in the influential collection Kissing the Rod! Editions of women's manuscript works continue to appear, complementing the existing printdominated canon of women writers? The Perdita Project, which organised the seminars on which this volume is based, has produced an online guide to women's manuscripts in the British Isles for the period 1500-1700. This guide takes the form of a searchable database of the Perdita team's research on over 400 manuscripts compiled by women, which includes biographical articles, discussions of the contexts and purposes of individual manuscripts, detailed lists of contents, such as first-and last-line indexes of poetry and prose, and physical descriptions (https://human.ntu.ac.uk/perdita).