The Author to Her Book

Gender plays a key role in the poem. Anne Bradstreet wrote during a time when nurturing of the sort she describes in the poem was primarily left to women. Moreover, despite the existence of many erudite and creative women in this historical period, there was an expectation that women’s writing and speech were appropriate only in certain spaces and only before particular audiences.

In the preface to The Tenth Muse, John Woodbridge acknowledges as much by describing Bradstreet’s work as something she did in off hours when she was not occupied with running her household. His preface also asserts that the Tenth Muse is a “Womans book,” a claim he makes because he believes there will be men who “question whether it be a womans Work, and aske, Is it possible?” (Woodbridge, John. Preface. The Tenth Muse by Anne Bradstreet, 1650). Intellectual and creative work was largely seen as the domain of men, while women were relegated to the domestic sphere.

Reading “The Author to Her Book” through the lens of biography makes the poem a commentary on the anxiety of a writer who knows that laypeople and critics already assume that her work will be inferior because she is a woman, or, if the work is skillful, will ascribe it to a man.