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Thursday, June 02, 2011

Question from Valerie - Literary patronage of Henry VIII's wives

I am currently a doctoral student in the USA, and next year I will beging the dissertation stage of my program.

I know I would like to write my dissertation on the patronage of the wives of Henry VIII, but I am not sure from what aspect I would like to do this.

So far, I have been thinking about writing on the books dedicated to the wives of Henry VIII. Literary patronage of the wives has not been done as a comprehensive study, and print culture is a very current historical trend.

I have already gathered the titles of all of the books dedicated to the wives, but I am not sure where to go from here. Is there even enough information to complete this type of study?

3 comments:

  1. Try 'The Books of King Henry VIII and His Wives' by James P. Carley.

    You can buy it at Amazon.com

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  2. Slightly beyond your question, but this paper might give you some ideas:

    The Library of Mildred Cooke Cecil, Lady Burghley

    You should be able to google the full pdf - as far as I recall it does cover female patronage for the later period.

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  3. No, go for it, I think it would fascinating! If my memory serves me right, you have contrasts such as Vives' scholarly works, dedicated to Katherine of Aragon to a book of midwifery which was dedicated to Catherine Howard.

    Professor Carley's book is highly readable and I second Roland's recommendation. You could also broaden it out to include dedications to Henry VIII as part of the humanist influences at court, if need be.

    Good luck!

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