Reading Popular Romance in Early Modern England. Lori Humphrey Newcomb
through the men's eventual enlightenment and admiration for female wit. In both plays, Cavendish suggests that gender is a product of social training, and men and women alike benefit from redefining traditional roles. Alexandra Bennett's introduction is useful, if brief, and she includes an extensive bibliography and five contextualizing appendices. Of particular note are contemporary accounts of "warrior women" in the English Civil War, including a letter from Henrietta Maria to Charles I, in which the queen refers to herself as "her she-majesty generalissima" (217). These provocative plays by Margaret Cavendish should find a place alongside Aphra Behn's in the study and performance of seventeenth-century British drama. CYNTHIA GARRETT Wells College