{"product_id":"9781035430604-with-my-own-hand","title":"With My Own Hand","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe secret life of Marie Maitland, Scotland’s sixteenth-century Sappho\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe untold story of the remarkable life of Marie Maitland\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A really thrilling discovery . This is a real extension of our knowledge of women of the period, engagingly told' - Philippa Gregory\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'It held me captive from the first page to the last. Utterly breathtaking' - Tracy Borman\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe youngest of the Maitland siblings, Marie had watched her elder sisters be married off one by one, destined to take up the unavoidable path for women in sixteenth-century Scotland. However, as she neared marrying age, her father, an influential judge, poet and Keeper of the Privy Seal under Mary, Queen of Scots, went blind and suddenly needed someone to act as his scribe and secretary. In taking up this role, Marie indeed avoided the unavoidable, dedicating her life to her father's work. After his death, she put the finishing touches on the \u003ci\u003eMaitland Quarto\u003c\/i\u003e, long recognised as significant for its preservation of the poetry of the male great-and-good of sixteenth-century Scotland.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA rare feat for a woman at the time, but Marie's story doesn't stop there. For hidden in the pages of the \u003ci\u003eMaitland Quarto\u003c\/i\u003e, historian and translator Ashley Douglas discovered Marie's own secret lesbian love poetry. Penning such poetry in the hostile climate of post-Reformation Scotland, with its suffocating tightening of moral control over society, was an incredible act of bravery. Unable to sign it directly, Marie, insistent on her voice and love being known, littered the manuscript with clues to its true penmanship. Clues that, until now, have remained unseen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBuilding on her initial discovery of Marie's poetry, in \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eWith My Own Hand\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e Ashley Douglas draws on a vast range of newly unearthed primary historical records to tell the fascinating story of Marie and her manuscript, in full, for the very first time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56585106489718,"sku":"9781035430604","price":17.87,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/stand_41142146_1a00ed5f-113e-4991-8490-83f97019ce72.jpg?v=1778119946","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9781035430604-with-my-own-hand","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}