<p><em>Recent interest in staging so-called ‘closet dramas’ by early modern women has bypassed Samuel Daniel’s </em><em>Cleopatra</em><em>, because of the author’s sex. Yet this play has strong female associations: it was commissioned by Mary Sidney Herbert, and is quoted in a Jacobean portrait of a woman (plausibly Lady Anne Clifford) in role as Cleopatra. We staged a Jacobean-style production of </em><em>Cleopatra </em><em>at Goodenough College, London, then a performance of selected scenes at Knole, Clifford’s home in Kent. This article presents the many insights gained about the dramatic power of the play and its significance in giving voices to women.</em></p>
Abstract
The short meditation, A discourse of life and death was translated by Mary (Sidney) Herbert, Countess of Pembroke in 1590 from Excellent discours de la vie et de la mort by Philippe de Mornay, seigneur du Plessis-Marly. This article presents the publishing history of Herbert’s translation and how it was adapted twice in the seventeenth century. First, it is found as an incomplete manuscript by ‘T. H. Gent.’ (BL MS Sloane 1037). The manuscript has the correct licence to print, but the wrong author, and was used as setting copy in the print shop of George Eld and Miles Flesher in early 1624. All copies of that edition are now lost. In 1697 Herbert’s translation was revised again as the ‘contemplations’ of Sir John Fenwick before his execution for treason.
Producing Gender: Mary Sidney Herbert and Her Early Editors