“THEN IBIS CAME”: LADY HESTER PULTER’S UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT IN ITS SOCIO-POLITICAL AND NORMATIVE CONTEXT

This article focuses on the manuscript of Lady Hester Pulter, a bundle containing 130 sheets found in 1996 in Leeds by Mark Robson, containing two series of poems and another 30 pages of a romance. The main objective of this paper is to set forth the reasons spurring the writer not to disclose her literary work, by mapping out the cultural and socio-political milieu of her time. To this end, it first addresses various laws that were enacted to exert control over literature, such as the banning of plays, and decrees governing printed works; and pointing out some decisions of a political nature, such as the 1649 banishing of monarchists from the city. In this way Hester Pulter’s creative legacy is placed in its context during the 1640s and 1650s, when political divisions radicalised, splitting the country into two factions at loggerheads, divided by severe ideological tension. Also examined are some family-related factors that may have persuaded the poet to keep her work secret, within the home and away from cultural and intellectual circles.