Our common definition of literacy is the ability to read and write in one language. However from the 15th to the 17th centuries print culture led to many disputes over modes of literacy, as the transition from Latin to more vernacular forms of speech and writing escalated.

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsProloguePart 1 - Theoretical and Historical Considerations1. Competing Concepts of Literacy in Imperial Contexts: Definitions, Debates, Interpretive Models2. Sociolinguistic Matrices for Early Modern Literacies: Paternal Latin, Mother Tongues, and Illustrious Vernaculars3. Discourses of Imperial Nationalism as Matrices for Early Modern LiteraciesPart 2 - Literacy in Action and in Fantasy Case StudiesInterlude4. An Empire of Her Own: Literacy as Appropriation in Christine de Pizan's Livre de la Cite des Dames5. Making the World Anew: Female Literacy as Reformation and Translation in Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron6. Allegories of Imperial Subjection: Literacy as Equivocation in Elizabeth Cary's Tragedy of Mariam7. New World Scenes from a Female Pen: Literacy as Colonization in Aphra Behn's Widdow Ranter and OroonokoAfterwordNotesSelect BibliographyIndex