Dorothy Leigh
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Of the seventeenth-century authors of mothers' legacies for their children,
was the earliest to reach print, and probably the most morally and theologically focussed. Writing for sons, not daughters, she gives clear and firm instructions about personal conduct (choosing a wife, for example) and about making a contribution to the community of Christian people, either by becoming a minister or by praying for better preaching and better leadership. Her work includes an accomplished poem.
Biography
Origins
The place and date of
's birth are not known. The fact that she was the mother of three sons before she died, and that she died by 1616, are not much help. Nor is the fact that by this date she called herself old, since at the time a widow past child-bearing age was encouraged to think of herself that way. She could have been born any time before about 1575.