She was a countess three times over, and in a triptych depicting her life she appears in utero, as a very young woman, and as a matron, always surrounded by books, at least one of which she wrote. Anne Clifford and other women like her, including her own mother, were powerful forces of intellect as well as of the politics of their day, and their ability to read and write, skills not even many men of their day had, were testimony to their particular type of power, identity and authority. Snook (English, U. of New Brunswick) closely analyzes how the reading of early modern Englishwomen is represented in writing and art, including devotional works, poetry, household and maternal books and fiction by Katherine Parr, Anne Askew, Dorothy Leigh, Elizabeth Grymeston, Aemelia Lanyer and Mary Wroth, and examines how such representation figured in private and public life for such women. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)