Introduction to Margaret Tyler’s translation of The Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthood

Margaret Tyler’s translation of the Spanish Romance by Diego Ortúñez de Calahorra, The Mirror of Princely Deeds and Knighthood, published in 1578, coincided with, and helped fuel, the contemporary boom in romance fiction, such as John Lyly’s Euphues (1579) and Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia (1580), and was her sole venture into print. Tyler’s prefatory address to the reader, which follows her dedication to her patron Thomas Howard, is the first published defence by a woman in English of the ability and equality of women writers in the world of masculine patronage, judgement, and power. It is a spirited and witty defence of intellectual equality and liberty of action, along with refutations of many key contemporary arguments used against women writing, publishing, or translating.