Early Women's Education and Tudor Humanism, Roger Ascham's English Works and the Formation of Elizabeth I, 1761

Ascham, Roger, The English Works of Roger Ascham, Preceptor to Queen Elizabeth, 1761, preserves the writings of the Tudor humanist whose instruction of Princess Elizabeth in Greek and Latin became part of the history of women's education, learned monarchy, and Renaissance pedagogy. Ascham served as Elizabeth's tutor from 1548 to 1550, later continued as Latin secretary under Mary I and Elizabeth I, and became known for educational writing that valued disciplined classical learning, lucid English prose, and humane methods of instruction. His association with Elizabeth gives this collected edition particular significance for research into elite female education, humanist curricula, Tudor intellectual culture, and eighteenth-century efforts to recover earlier models of learning for modern readers. Ascham, Roger. The English Works of Roger Ascham, Preceptor to Queen Elizabeth. London: Printed for T. Davies, in Russell-Street, Covent-Garden, and J. Dodsley, in Pall-Mall, 1761. Edited, with notes, observations, and the author's life, by James Bennet, master of the boarding-school of Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire. One volume. Pagination not supplied. No illustrations noted. Half morocco with gilt detail on covers and gilt lettering on spine. Size not supplied. Contents include "A Report of the Affairs of Germany, and the Emperor Charles's Court," Toxophilus, or the School of Shooting, The Schoolmaster, or Perfect Way of Bringing Up Youth, illustrated by the late learned Mr. Upton, and letters to Queen Elizabeth and others, first published from manuscripts. HathiTrust records a closely related later issue of The English Works of Roger Ascham with notes, observations, and the author's life by James Bennet, and gives the physical extent of that issue as xvi, 395 pages, confirming the collected structure of the work while not replacing the supplied 1761 copy details. Bennet's dedication frames Ascham's historical value through his relation to female sovereignty, stating that "Ascham was not only the chief ornament of a celebrated college, but visited foreign countries, frequented courts, and lived in familiarity with statesmen and princes; not only instructed scholars in literature, but formed Elizabeth to empire." That sentence makes the volume more than a collected literary edition: it presents Elizabeth's education as a political achievement and connects women's learning to governance, court culture, and national memory. Some wear to ends of spine, with bright interiors otherwise; overall good. A handsome eighteenth-century collected edition linking Tudor humanist education to the intellectual formation of Elizabeth I and the longer history of arguments for learned women.…