FURTHER READING
The Collected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pem-
broke, Vol. 1, edited by Michael G. Brennan, Margeret P.
Hannay, and Noel J. Kinnamon, 92–101. Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1998.
Hannay, Margaret P. “Doo What Men May Sing: Mary
Sidney and the Tradition of Admonitory Dedication.” In
Silent but for the Word, edited by Margaret P. Hannay,
149–165. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1985.
Kerri Lynn Allen
TOTTEL’S MISCELLANY (SONGES AND
SONNETTES) (1557) In 1557, English pub-
lisher Richard Tottel (ca. 1530–ca. 1594) published a
collection of 213 poems under the title SONGES AND
SONNETTES. This collection, which we now know as
Tottel’s Miscellany, is signifi cant for the study of 16th-
century poetry because of the vast corpus of poems
that it contains. Many of SIR THOMAS WYATT’s poetry
posthumously appeared in this volume, a fact that
ensures the continual relevance of Tottel’s Miscellany.
In addition to preserving and disseminating many
poems that had previously circulated only in manu-
script, Tottel’s Miscellany had a remarkable impact on
the print marketplace and generated huge waves of
interest in compiling, printing, and reading miscella-
nies over the next 50 years.
Although the title page labels HENRY HOWARD, EARL
OF SURREY as its author, Tottel’s Miscellany can hardly be
described as having a single author—and in fact Surrey
wrote only about one-fi fth of the poems. Scattered
throughout Tottel’s Miscellany are poems by Howard,
Thomas Wyatt, Nicholas Grimald, and many anony-
mous or “uncertain” authors. Like the many manu-
script compilations, miscellanies, commonplace books,
and anthologies that circulated throughout the cen-
tury, Tottel’s Miscellany showcases the writings of a
large network of writers, and the poems included
refl ect vital cultural practices as well as exemplifying
literary merits.
Of course, the key difference between such manu-
script texts and Tottel’s Miscellany is a material one:
Tottel’s Miscellany appeared in print. As mentioned
above, many of the poems published in Tottel’s Miscel-
lany were available in manuscript form. In fact, quite a
few of the poems were written during the 1530s—
nearly 30 years before the publication of Tottel’s Miscel-
lany. This temporal gap meant that the poems acquired
new material, ideological, and literary contexts when
they were presented in the volume.
It is diffi cult to overestimate the popularity of Tot-
tel’s Miscellany. After seven weeks, the book had already
gone through three editions. During the next 30 years,
it was issued seven more times. Because of the number
of poems complied in Tottel’s Miscellany, it might be
described as the most signifi cant published collection
of verses that appeared during the mid-16th century.
The miscellany gives us a sense of the wide variety of
verse forms, themes, and subjects that were popular
during this period. Moreover, Tottel’s Miscellany was
crucial to the wide dissemination of poetry written in
the Petrarchan tradition (see PETRARCH).
FURTHER READING
Hamrick, Stephen. “Tottel’s Miscellany and the English Ref-
ormation.” Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts
44, no. 4 (2002): 329–361.
Pomeroy, Elizabeth. The Elizabethan Miscellanies: Their
Development and Conventions. Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1973.
Wall, Wendy. The Imprint of Gender: Authorship and Publica-
tion in the English Renaissance. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1993.
Emily SmithTOWER OF LONDON Begun by William the
Conqueror shortly after the NORMAN CONQUEST, the
Tower of London has served as royal residence, armory,
treasury, fortress, and barracks. It is situated on the
north shore of the Thames, a site that takes advantage
of defensive construction dating back to Roman times,
and it is probably best known for its function as a jail-
house for important prisoners. The Tower has also
been associated with the composition of numerous
poems, many written within its walls, including some
by ROBERT SOUTHWELL, SIR WALTER RALEIGH, Princess
Elizabeth (later Queen ELIZABETH I), and many others.
The original 1066/67 castle was sited on one and a
quarter acres, with the central White Tower as the focal
point. Over the years, the Tower was more than dou-
bled in size. During Edward I’s reign (1272–1307), aTOWER OF LONDON 439