Christine de Pizan (c.1364-1430) was France's first professional woman of letters. Her pioneering Book of the City of Ladies begins when, feeling frustrated and

'Philosophers, poets and orators too numerous to mention all speak with one voice and are unanimous in their view that female nature is wholly given up to vice.

"A translation of Christine de Pizan's Christine's Vision, The Book of the City of Ladies, the Lamentation on France's Ills and her Book of Body Politic, with a

Pioneering female writer Christine de Pizan's spirited defence of her sex against medieval misogyny and literary stereotypes is now recognized as one of the mos