Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke and sister to Sir Philip Sidney, is the most important woman writer of the Elizabethan era outside the royal family. This scholarly edition in two volumes is the first to include all her extant works: Volume I prints her three original poems, the disputed `Dolefull Lay of Clorinda', her translations from Petrarch, Mornay, and Garnier, and all her known letters. Volume II contains her metrical paraphrases of Psalms 44-150. The edition also provides a biographical introduction, discussion of her sources and methods of composition, textual annotation, and a detailed commentary.

• [Volume I]


• References and Abbreviations


• Editorial Procedure


• Chronological Table


• Introduction


• Biographical Introduction


• Origins, Early Reception, and Influence


• Methods of Composition and Translation


• THE TEXTS


• Original Works: `A Dialogue betweene two shepheards, Thenot and Piers, in praise of Astraea'; `Even Now that Care'; `To the Angell Spiriti of the most excellent, Sir Philip Sidney'; Variant printed in Samuel Daniel's 1623 Workes


• Disputed Work: `The Dolefull Lay of Clorinda'


• Translations: Antonius, by Robert Garnier; A Discourse of Life and Death by Philippe doe Mornay; The Triumph of Death by Francis Petrarch


• Correspondence: Manuscript Letters; Printed Letters Attributed to Mary Sidney Herbert, Dowager Countess of Pembroke


• Transmission and Authority of the Texts


• Commentary


• [Volume II]


• References and Abbreviations


• THE TEXTS


• The Psalmes of David


• Literary Context


• Copytext: Penshurst MS


• Variant Psalmes


• Manuscrips of the Psalmes


• Relationship of the Texts of the Psalmes


• Major Revisions of Psalms 1-43


• Commentary