The Countess of Montgomery's Urania

The Countess of Montgomery's Urania, also known as Urania, is a prose romance by English Renaissance writer Lady Mary Wroth. Composed at the beginning of the 17th century, it is the first known prose romance written by an English woman. The full work exists in two volumes, the first published in 1621 and the second written, but unpublished, during Wroth's lifetime. The novel also contains several versions of Wroth's sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, distributed throughout the prose and reproduced in sequence at the end of the volume.

The precise dates for Urania's composition are unknown, but Wroth probably began writing the first volume between 1615 and 1620. Initially, it was written for the enjoyment of Wroth's family circle, and could have been composed, in part, at the home of William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, in London. The early manuscript of Urania may have circulated amongst Wroth's household, family, and friends as evening entertainment; if so, their responses to the text aided her revision of the manuscript.

Sources for Urania include Wroth's uncle Philip Sidney's The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Wroth may have drawn the name of her work's title from the Arcadia, as one of its significant characters is named "Urania." Other literary sources include Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene and Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Anthony Munday's English translation of Amadis de Gaule, published in 1618 and 1619, may have also been a major source for Wroth. The romance inspired several of Urania's plotlines, including the Throne of Love sequence near the beginning of the work. Wroth also drew heavily on the political and social world around her, and many of the work's storylines have connections to Wroth's family, court life, and historical events of the early 17th century.

John Marriott and John Grismand entered Urania into the Stationers' Register on July 13, 1621. Wroth had loose connections to Marriott and Grismand through her cousin William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. Herbert was a patron of George Wither, whose Wither's Motto: Nec habeo, nec careo, nec curo prompted his, Marriott's, and Grismand's arrest, along with printer Augustine Matthews', in early 1621. On June 4, 1621, the printer and publishers were fined for the publication of Motto; Marriott and Grismand spent some time in Marshalsea, and were released on July 10, three days before entering Urania into the Stationers' Register.

...
Wikipedia