Introduction
Along with ‘Constantia Munda’ and ‘Rachel Speght’, ‘Ester Sowernam’ was one of the contributors to a series of vigorous pamphlet attacks on the anti-feminist ‘bayter of women’ John Swetnam, her pamphlet being entitled Ester hath hang'd Haman, or, an answere to a lewd pamphlet entituled The arraignment of women (London, 1617). It is likely that Munda and Sowernam (but not Speght) were using pseudonyms and it has even been suspected that their two pamphlets may not even have been written by women, but each simply in the persona of a woman. In any event, there are no known manuscripts by any of these obscure authors.
Peter Beal