Isabella Whitney (most likely born between 1546 and 1548, died after 1624); fl. 1566–1600) was arguably the first female poet and professional woman writer in England. More specifically, Whitney is credited with being the first Englishwoman to have penned and published original secular poetry under her own name.
Early life Isabella Whitney was born in Cheshire, England. Her father, Geoffrey, was brother to Sir Robert Whitney, and their family was the Cheshire branch of the influential Whitney family, based in Clifford, Gorsington, Icomb and Castleton. At the time of her birth, her family were living at Coole Pilate in the parish of Acton, near Nantwich, though the family moved in 1558 when her father took a lease of a farm at Ryles Green, Audlem. Isabella Whitney was the second child, having an older brother, Geoffrey, four sisters - Anne, Margery, Mary and Dorothea - and a younger brother, Brooke. George Mainwaring, who is mentioned in A Sweet Nosegay and came from a prominent household in England, was a childhood friend of hers. Her brother, Geoffrey Whitney (named after their father), was a notable author of the time, whose works include A Choice of Emblemes and other Devises (1586). Geoffrey died in 1601 without a spouse.
Personal life Whitney lived and worked in London until 1573, when she lost her position under the mistress she was serving and became unemployed. The reason behind the loss of her employment is assumed to be due to slander as evidenced in A Sweet Nosegay. She lived in Abchurch Lane while she continued to write but her finances did not allow her to stay there for long. There is evidence that she reached out to friends and family for support, but they were unwilling or unable to supply it. Unable to support herself, she returned to the family home in Ryles Green. The Wilkersley court records for 1576 show her father being fined for the fact that his unmarried daughters, Dorothea and Isabella, were both pregnant. Isabella’s child, a girl, was baptised in September of that year in Audlem, but there is no further reference to her. Sometime around 1580, she married the physician of Audlem, Richard Eldershaw, a Catholic who was several times fined for non-attendance at church. In 1600 he was fined the sum of £240 at a time when a rural labourer would expect to earn £40-£60 a year. Perhaps this is why Whitney saw the benefit of using her contacts in the publishing world to make a little extra money around this time. They had two children: Marie and Edmund. 'Sister Eldershae' is mentioned in her brother’s will of 1601, as are Isabella's children and her husband, Richard. Dorothea is not mentioned in this will, so it is possible that she predeceased her brother. Geoffrey left his sister, Isabella, a quantity of silver. Isabella surfaces again in 1624, when her other brother, Brooke, a successful lawyer in London, makes his will and dies. There is no mention of Richard Eldershaw, suggesting he might have died. By this time, Isabella would have been in her seventies. No record of her death has so far surfaced, though her children are documented as living in Stafford as adults.
Career The term “pressing the press” insinuated a scandalous sexual behavior that inherently linked print to something perceived as negative. It is terms such as these that worked against women who wished to publish their work. In early modern England, many factors affected women’s access to the world of print. Public speaking was somehow associated with harlotry, many insisted that the proper place for women to be was inside of their homes, and a silent woman constituted as a mold all women should strive to fit. Whitney’s work directly addresses this issue of hesitation to publish one’s work due to the negative connotations associated with it.
It was especially harmful to Whitney also because of her current station as an unemployed single woman. The lack of opportunities for women, especially those like Whitney, created difficulties to make money in early modern London. Whitney is also writing her poetry in order to profit, even placing her writing in substitution for a husband that would normally work and profit for the house. Due to this, there exists the reasoning that since Whitney is a woman in print who uses her work to make money, many may have considered her to be a prostitute of sorts. This is because of how women publishing work to a public audience was seen as a scandalous, sexual act. It did not help that her persona of an unemployed maidservant was a group that was often linked to prostitution in early modern society.
Through her uncle’s contacts, Whitney built up contacts in the printing industry and began penning verse which was published, initially anonymously but later under her own name or initials, using the tropes in fashion at the time but subverting them from the traditional, socially-approved roles women and men were expected to play in relationships and society generally. Losing her job, she turned to her writing to support her, an endeavour in which she was supported by Richard Jones, an up and coming member of the Stationers Company. In 1567 Jones published a small collection of Whitney’s verse: The Copy of a letter, lately written in meeter, by a yonge Gentilwoman: to her vnconstant Louer. With an Admonition to al yonge Gentilwomen, and to all other Mayds in general to beware of mennes flattery. This collection of four poems in the popular epistolary form deals with relationship issues and presents four very different and somewhat unconventional views of how men and women ought to behave as lovers which serve to emphasise what she apparently saw as the hypocrisy and unfairness prevalent in society.
This criticism of accepted norms is used again in “A Sweet Nosgay” published in 1573 but this time she is attacking the status of women generally, not just as lovers. As she freely admits, she was inspired by Hugh Plat's Floures of Philosophie (1572), reworking some of his aphorisms on the themes of love, suffering, friendship, and depression with an added female perspective that many would call “proto-feminist”. She followed this section with ‘letters’ addressed to various family members and friends which enabled her to discuss aspects of her theme. The collection closes with arguably her best known work – Wyll – which demonstrates not only her intimate knowledge of London at this period but also uses a popular trope of the mock will to make social comment.
1578 saw the publication of The Lamentacion of a Gentilwoman which is considered to be Whitney’s work. It was written in response to the death of William Gruffith, Gentleman. Who this gentleman was is a mystery. Various suggestions have been put forward but no evidence has surfaced to support any of them.
Again in 1600 a work is published which has been ascribed to Whitney: Ovidius Naso His Remedie of Love. This collection comprises a translation of Remedia Armoris followed by ‘a letter to the Reader and two “epistles, of which one is translated out of Ouid, the other is an answere thereunto”’. That last of these is reckoned to be Whitney’s work and is written in the voice of Aeneas and addressed to Dido, the abandoned queen of Carthage – characters who frequently appear in Whitney’s work.
Works The Copy of a letter, lately written in meeter, by a yonge Gentilwoman: to her vnconstant Louer. With an Admonitio to al yonge Gentilwomen, and to all other Mayds in general to beware of mennes flattery (1567). Whitney's first work, The Copy of a Letter (1566-7) contains four love complaints, two of which are in a female voice and two of which are in a male voice. Copy is a response to her former lover who has gone off and married another woman. It is speculated that this work may be imaginative rather than literal.Travitsky BS. 'Whitney, Isabella (fl. 1566–1573)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (accessed 15 March 2013) The pictures seen here, from the Early English Books Online,Whitney, Isabella. The Copy of a letter, lately written in meeter, by a yonge Gentilwoman: to her vnconstant Louer. With an Admonitio to al yonge Gentilwomen, and to all other Mayds in general to beware of mennes flattery. 1567. Bodleian Library, Oxford. Early English Books Online.(accessed 13 Feb 2015) are copies of Isabella's first published works. In 1567, The Copy of a letter… was published. The only living copy is housed at Oxford's Bodleian Library; it consisted of the following two poems. “I.W. to her Unconstant Lover” (as seen on the right). “The Admonition by the Auctor, to all Young Gentlewomen.” A Sweet Nosegay (1573). This, Whitney's second work, was inspired by Plat's Floures of Philosophie (1572), which she “cites punningly as ‘Plat’s [garden] Plot.’” She says that although he planted them, Isabella had to harvest and arrange them.Foster, Donald W., ed. Women’s Works: 1550-1603. Vol. 2. New York: Wicked Good Books, 2014. 172-187 This publication also came at a time in English history when people like Whitney, those not belonging to the upper class, were given the opportunity to purchase all sorts of different goods. With this newfound opportunity to read books came a well of knowledge filled with new ways to live. Whitney’s work contributed to this well with the versification of Hugh Plat’s humanist discourse. As aforementioned, London was in a great state of change as a capitalist mindset grew and “contaminated” the streets of London. This humanist knowledge from Plat is presented to her readers with intent to keep them in good health as they had kept herself well in the infected social and moral world around her. Perhaps the work she is most known for, A Sweet Nosegay, (as seen to the rightWhitney, Isabella. A Sweet Nosegay. 1573. British Library, London. Early English Books Online. (accessed 14 Feb 2016)) showcases Whitney’s style and independence. Within this second book of hers, she has changed from a woman who is depressed about love and romance to a woman who writes to the world as a single woman in London.Gates, Daniel. Renaissance Quarterly 61.4 (2008): 1399–1401. A Sweet Nosegay also focuses on the suffering and illness that, in the end, forced her to leave London. Whitney expresses in her poetry that she is warned to avoid the lanes and streets which are contaminated with disease. Although this can be seen literally, these public spaces can also be references to the rather corrupted public circulation of print. While Whitney is returned to her space within the home where many men would say she is safe, in a rebellious manner she is still able to send her work out into the world. In order to share her nosegay as medicine to those who read it, her book must be exposed to the ratifications that come with public print. Whitney knows what it means to be a woman in public print and takes on this burden of corruption in order to be of some help to others. Through the poems, we receive seemingly autobiographical hints about Whitney, namely that she has two younger sisters who are in service, that Whitney is single and that is why she is allowed to write, that she is of low rank, and that despite serving a woman she admires, she has lost her position and is ill and financially struggling.Travitsky BS. 'Whitney, Isabella (fl. 1566–1573)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 She also indicates her independence by mentioning that she will earn her living by writing and selling her literary works. Through this, she shows the alienation that existed during this time and calls for a change. "The Author to the Reader" – Since readers had not read anything from Whitney since 1567, she included a verse epistle titled “The Author to the Reader” to catch them up on the last six years.