Anna Victoria Wall

My current research re-evaluates the cultural and social impact of early modern women’s domestic writing. Focused on the texts of nonconformist women, this research explores the ways in which women used domestic modes of writing (letters, notebooks, diaries etc.) to disseminate their theological beliefs, revealing the crucial role their texts played in the construction of religious communities from the Reformation to the turbulent post-Restoration years.  This research builds on my PhD thesis which offers the first full bibliographic account of the manuscript texts of the seventeenth-century Puritan, Lucy Hutchinson (1620-1681) to assert their literary and theological importance. I am an expert in the study of material texts and Renaissance literary cultures while my broader research interests include the role played by women in the development of the literary culture of mid-seventeenth century England, the history of the book, the early modern reception of Reformation texts, and the participation of the laity in the development of Puritanism.