Soldiers, spies, businesswomen, lobbyists, those Shakespearean women really knew how to live. Outspoken and daring, all while keeping their heads during a time when women could be flogged for speaking harshly to their husbands, or in the case of King Henry VIII, loose their heads for not producing an heir, the women portrayed in this book are proud, passionate or just trying to make a living.
Uppity Women of Shakespearean Times is one of a series of books about groundbreaking women of history that really got lost in the shuffle. You won’t find the famous, at least not today, but rather the savy women who not only kept their heads, but also kept diaries or were important enough to have some form of record of their existence.
As the title suggests, this book concentrates on women who lived and acted out their lives during the 16th and 17th centuries. The book also goes under the name Uppity Women of Medieval Times. The name change is not explained. Perhaps the publisher thought that having a celebrity name on the cover would excite more sales.
Uppity Women is not a book for serious historical study of women in European history. For that there are any number of well-crafted books by authors such as Allison Weir, Margaret George and even several diaries and books of letters from the time. Instead, it is a tongue-in-cheek book best suited for the coffee table or perhaps the bathroom. The is only a page or sometimes two devoted to each woman, so the book is best read in snippets.
Personally, while trying to read through several vignettes at once, I got a bit annoyed at the writing style because it focused more on humor and sarcasm than it did on actual historical facts. So while I may have wanted to know more about a certain woman, or more detail such as dates or background, the precious space allocated for each one was mostly devoted to getting in a pun or two, most of which were more obvious than clever.
Related Articles:
Sunday at Tiffany’s Book Review
Book Review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett