Charlotte Cooper-Davis

This is the first biography of Christine de Pizan—a writer active in France in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and perhaps the first woman in Europe to support herself through her work as an author—to be aimed at a general audience. Given the nature of the surviving sources, Charlotte Cooper-Davis inevitably has to focus more on Christine's work, the social contexts in which she lived and worked, and her later reception than on the details of her life proper. However, Cooper-Davis is deft at squeezing what conclusions she can from looking at things like the physical nature of the manuscripts produced under Christine's direct supervision, and seeing what this can tell us about Christine's operations as an entrepreneur. Cooper-Davis' prose is clear and accessible, and I would recommend this quick read to anyone with a curiosity about Christine and her work.… (mais)