Book excerpt: This edition of the writings of Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell (1540-1609) unites in one volume the varied corpus of a prolific early modern woman writer, including her unpublished correspondence, manuscript poems, monumental inscriptions and elegies, courtroom appearances, and ceremonial performances, as well as her printed translation of A Way of 'Reconciliation of a good and learned man'. Presenting Russell's manuscript and material texts not as scattered, disparate productions but as elements within a unified authorial program, this edition offers a rich experience of the genres, conventions, and formalities of early modern English culture, and reveals the astounding degree of self-expression they could afford to an innovative author. In these formidable writings, women's erudition is defended as an inalienable birthright and a defining feature of femininity.