A pioneering study of the origins of feminist thought in late seventeenth-century England.

Sarah Apetrei is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Theology, Keble College, University of Oxford.

Introduction; Part I. 'The Order of Platonick Ladies': Mary Astell and her Circle: 1. Female advocates: defences of women in seventeenth-century England; 2. 'Out of choice and not necessitie': the celibacy of Mary Astell; 3. Reason, gender and the passions in Mary Astell; 4. Mary Astell's feminism and the religion of Protestants; Part II. 'The Company of the She-Publishers': Prophets, Mystics and Visionaries: 5. Quaker women and Protestant renewal; 6. Millenarians and Philadelphians; 7. The universal principle of grace; 8. The divine life: celestial flesh and inner light; Conclusion; Bibliography.