The following bibliography does not pretend to be exhaustive, but it will give scholars and interested students points of access to the vast resources of the web.

1. General Sites on Women Writers

2. Sites for Individual Women Writers

3. Sites for Women in Art and Music

4. Literary Mega-sites

5. Cultural Background Sites

1. General Sites on Women Writers

— A Celebration of Women Writers

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mmbt/www/women/celebration.html

A cross-cultural site—including English, French, Italian and Spanish writers—with some nice features, maintained by Mary Mark Ockerbloom at Carnegie Mellon University. It offers multiple references to the same author under variant names and allows browsing by century. The site attempts to provide "a comprehensive listing of links to biographical and bibliographical information about women writers, and complete published books written by women," but you will probably find other online materials on some of these writers that are not linked to this site. Nevertheless, its list of writers’ names is impressive.

— Brown Women Writers’ Project

www.wwp.brown.edu/wwp_home.html

This important project has created an online, searchable textbase of writings in English by women, 1400-1850. Known as Women Writers Online, the textbase is available by modest subscription to individuals or institutions. A subset of the textbase, Renaissance Women Online, still in development, will provide 100 texts with scholarly introductions and contextual essays. Printed paper copies of many of these texts may be ordered for classroom use. The related WWP-L Listserv is a discussion group of about 300 scholars that fields questions about teaching and researching women writers, offers information on conferences, calls for papers, new books and articles, and updates WWP’s latest projects. Instructions for joining may be found on the web site.

— Early Modern French Women Writers' Project

http://erc.lib.umn.edu/dynaweb/french/

This project at the University of Minnesota offers e-texts of writings by Christine de Pizan, Diane de Poitiers, Louise Labe, Marguerite de Navarre, Marie de Gournay, and Pernette du Guillet.

— Emory Women Writers’ Project

chaucer.library.emory.edu/wwrp/

Directed by Sheila Cavanagh, the site mounts edited and unedited texts by women writing in English from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. There is good coverage of seventeenth-century works by such writers as Aphra Behn, Judith Boulbie, Margaret Cavendish, Eleanor Douglas, Elizabeth I, Mary Evelyn, Margaret Fell Fox, Sarah Jinner, Anna Trapnell, Mary Waite, and Hannah Wolley.

— Luminarium

http://www.luminarium.org/lumina.htm

Annina Jokinen designed this beautiful site that features English writers with texts, images and music from the Middle Ages, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Women writers included are: Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Elizabeth I, Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, and Lady Mary Wroth. There are useful links to other early modern sites.

— MARGOT

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/FREN/margot/#Projets

This project organized by Hannah Fournier, Delbert Russell, and Peter Marteinson at the University of Waterloo is creating a database of works by early Frenchwomen and a selection of their Latin sources.

— Mateo – U of Mannheim

http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/start6.html

This German site has beautifully digitized books by and about women, including: a German 1544 ed. of Vives; Orationes, dialogi, epistolae... (1562) by Olympia Fulvia Morata; Solennia Hymni (1601) by Lorenza Strozzi; Epistolae et orationes (1636) by Cassandra Fedele; Epistolae (1640) by Laura Cereta; Opuscula Hebraea (1652) by Anna Maria van Schurman. Many of these editions include author portraits, and Morata’s book has a dedication to Elizabeth I.

— Medieval Feminist Index

http://www.haverford.edu/library/reference/mschaus/mfi/mfi.html

This excellent site, maintained at Haverford College, indexes "journal articles, book reviews, and essays in books about women, sexuality, and gender during the Middle Ages." Subjects indexed cover all aspects of medieval life from art and architecture to iconography, politics, religious life, sexuality, and women in literature. A special feature is "Article of the Month," highlighting an especially well-written and significant piece that would be useful for course readings.

— Orlando Project

www.ualberta.ca/ORLANDO

A Canadian initiative that complements the Brown Women Writers’ Project. They are developing a comprehensive scholarly history of British women’s writing that will appear in five printed volumes, divided chronologically: vol. 1 will cover writers to 1830. In addition, a searchable electronic textbase "will include all of the material in the printed volumes."

— Perdita Project

human.ntu.ac.uk/perdita/

Another initiative that complements the Brown WWP, Perdita is organized by Elizabeth Clarke, Martyn Bennett, and Victoria Burke at Nottingham Trent University. This project is producing a database guide to about 400 manuscript miscellanies and commonplace books by British women from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It will offer bibliographic information and detailed descriptions of contents.

— Renaissance Women Writers

http://www.lang.uiuc.edu/complit/rw/index.html

The site of an online graduate seminar led by Janet Smarr of the U of Illinois. It offers galleries of images of holy women, noble patrons, writers, and women at work.

— Renascence Editions

darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/ren.htm

This site provides works printed in English from 1477 to 1799, including pieces by Elizabeth I, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Mary Sidney, Esther Sowernam, Rachel Speght, Phillis Wheatley, and Lady Mary Wroth.

 2. Sites for Individual Women Writers

— Margaret Cavendish

jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jbf/

Includes bibliography, information on Cavendish Listserv, and the List Archive.

— Veronica Gambara

http://www.losio.com/gam03.htm

An Italian site with links to Ellen Moody’s translation of her Stanze and a discussion of her family, with a fine reproduction of a portrait attributed as her. 

— Elizabeth I

http://www.bangor.ac.uk/~hip01c/Elizabeth.htm

"The Life and Times of Queen Elizabeth I" is an attractive site with biographical information and a whole section on portraits, including other links. It is maintained by Heather Thomas, a graduate student in Elizabethan history. The bibliographies include biographies and fiction about Elizabeth.

See also Portraits of Elizabeth I under 3 below, and Tudor England under 5, below.

— Louise Labé

http://www.eleves.ens.fr:8080/home/coulmont/labe.html

This French site gives the full text of Labé's sonnets, with translations into English and several other languages of selected sonnets. It includes several other pieces by Labé as well. Twenty-seven poems by Labé and two by Catherine des Roches are also available at "Poésie Française": http://www.poesie.webnet.fr/

 — Aemilia Lanyer

www.u.arizona.edu/ic/mcbride/lanyer/lanyer.htm

Includes biography, bibliography, and the text of Salve Rex Judaeorum.

— Bathsua Makin

www.pinn.net/~sunshine/book-sum/makin1.html

— Gaspara Stampa, Rime

http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/s/stampa/rime/html/index.htm

An Italian site with the text of Stampa’s Rime d’Amore.

— International Marie de France Society

saturn.vcu.edu/~cmarecha/#works

— Mary, Queen of Scots

http://home.earthlink.net/~zzz12/site.htm

Not a scholarly site, but it does have some good portraits and links. 

— Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz

www.dartmouth.edu/~sorjuana/

The site has a splendid color portrait of Sor Juana in her library, as well as bibliography, exegesis, contextual background, and a link to a site in Bielefeld with a digitized version of her book, Fama y Obras.

— Isabella Whitney

www.montana.edu:80/wwwwhitn/whitney.html 

3. Sites for Women in Art and Music

The art sites are useful for finding works by women artists and for finding portraits of early women.

— Women Artists in History

home.webcom.se/art/

An attractive site offering paintings by women artists from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. Biographical information is given for featured artists Sophonisba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Judith Leyster. Links from this site include: 

Women Artists of Early Modern Europe, 

info-center.ccit.arizona.edu/~ws/ws200/fall97/grp13/grp13.htm a Women’s Studies project from the University of Arizona that has papers with biographical information on a number of early women artists, and another site called Women Artists in History, www.wendy.com/women/artists.html that is creating a listing of women artists with links to other sites for reproductions of their works; searching by century is available.

— ArtCyclopedia

artcyclopedia.com

— CGFA - Carol Gerton Fine Arts

sunsite.auc.dk/cgfa/

These two mega art sites provide access to thousands of reproductions by artists available on the web. ArtCyclopedia allows browsing of 6,000 artists by subject, medium or nationality. Under subject/ portraits, for example, artists are listed chronologically. Portraits of women may be found, but only by choosing individual artists to see which of their paintings are available. Two examples are the portrait of Lady Harington (1592) by Marcus Gheeraerts, and the portrait of Lady Kytson (1573) by by George Gower, both at the Tate. Carol Gerton’s terrific site allows searching by nationality and date. 

— Portraits of Elizabeth I

http://tudor.simplenet.com/elizabeth/gallery.html

Features a large collection of excellent portraits of Elizabeth in various media and from different periods.

128.174.194.59/klein/420/image_gallery.htm

A whole page of portraits of Elizabeth, along with Mary Tudor and Henry VIII.

members.aol.com/pfstreitz/wizzr.html

Portrait of Elizabeth I at fourteen.

www.doveruk.com/museum/shopping/eliz1.htm

Miniature of Elizabeth with the seven Graces, attributed to Hilliard, the Dover Museum.

sunsite.auc.dk/cgfa/j/j-2.htm#johnson

Portrait of Elizabeth by Hilliard, c1584, British Museum

 

— Early Music Women Composers

http://150.252.8.92/www/iawm/pages/

This excellent site includes a Tour of Women’s Early Music History, a Chronology of Composers and Annotated CD Discography, recommended CDs, and parallel paintings by women artists. It is also possible to listen to some of the music. 

4. Literary Mega-Sites

These sites provide links to a wide range of literary and background materials on the web, including information on women writers.

— Ceres: Cambridge English Renaissance Electronic Service

http://white.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/

Sponsored by the English Faculty at Cambridge University, this site offers links to other related sites, an online newsletter and publication projects.

— Literary Resources on the Net

newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/

Maintained by Jack Lynch at Rutgers University, this is one of the top sites providing access to a rich variety of web resources covering periods from antiquity to the modern, in English and other languages. There is a special section on "Women’s Literature and Feminism."

— Electronic Text Collections in Western European Literature

http://www.lib.virginia.edu/wess/etexts.html

Designed by the Western European Specialists of the Assoc. of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), this site provides links to online literary texts in western languages other than English.

— Gallica Classique

http://gallica.bnf.fr/classique/

A site from the Bibliothèque Nationale providing full-text books by French writers, searchable by period. Early women writes represented are: Pernette du Guillet, Marguerite d’Angoulême (de Navarre), Marie de Gournay, Madame de Lafayette, and Mme de Sévigné.

— The Voice of the Shuttle

http://vos.ucsb.edu/

The major site for resources in the Humanities, maintained by Alan Liu. It provides hundreds of links to sites for everything from architecture, cultural studies and history, to literature, music and dance and women’s studies. Because the site is so large, not all of the connecting addresses are up-to-date, but Liu is glad to know about any that do not work.

5. Cultural Background Sites

— Art History Resources on the Web

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html

Maintained by Christopher Witcombe, Prof. of Art History at Sweet Briar College, this site offers sections on Renaissance and Baroque art with links to other sites, including museums.

 — The British Monarchy

http://www.royal.gov.uk/history/

An official site of the British government, providing biographical information as well as portraits.

 — Early Modern Italian Renaissance

http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/REN/REN.HTM

A site offering art, history, literature, and cartography of the Italian Renaissance, as well as links to other sources.

— Early Music FAQ

http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/

Advertised as "the largest reference for Medieval and Renaissance music on the web," this site provides good introductions to the music of various nationalities, as well as information on CDs and concerts.

— Elizabethan Costume Page

http://www.dnaco.net/~aleed/corsets/general.html

This excellent site contains information on the construction of garments, British and European dress, sumptuary laws, embroidery,

— English Baroque Composers

http://www.ozemail.com.au/~davcooke/abbey.htm

The site allows you to listen to a sampling of music by eleven composers from Blow to Purcell.

— Medieval/Renaissance Embroidery

http://www.advancenet.net/~jscole/medembro.html

An amateur but good site for information and images of early embroidery styles.

 — New Advent

http://www.newadvent.org/

A major site for Catholic studies, providing the full text of the Catholic Encyclopedia, as well as the Church Fathers, and the Summa Theologica. One can search, for example, Catherine de Medici, Catherine of Siena, and Maria de Agreda, seventeenth-century author of La mística ciudad de Dios.

— Resources de la Civilisation Française

http://www.richmond.edu/~jpaulsen/civfrw3.html

A site providing a number of links to online resources on French history and literature, divided by period.

— Tudor England

http://tudor.simplenet.com/

A handsome site maintained by Lara Eakin, providing information on rulers from Henry VII through Mary Tudor, Jane Grey, and Elizabeth I, as well as information on Tudor history and daily life, and a selection of historic documents. The many portraits make this site an especially important pictorial source.

 http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/9194/tudor/tudormai.html

Another site by a Tudor history fanatic, with all sorts of useful information and excellent pictures. It includes material on Mary, Queen of Scots, which tudor.simplenet does not. Among the primary sources are speeches by Ann Boleyn, Mary Tudor, and Elizabeth, as well as poems and a few letters by Elizabeth.