Among the best-known and most prolific French women writers of the sixteenth century, Madeleine (1520-87) and Catherine (1542-87) des Roches were celebrated not only for their uncommonly strong mother-daughter bond but also for their bold assertion of poetic authority for women in the realm of belles lettres."" The Dames des Roches excelled in a variety of genres, including poetry, Latin and Italian translations, correspondence, prose dialogues, pastoral drama, and tragicomedy; collected in "From Mother and Daughter" are selections from their celebrated oeuvre, suffused with an engaging and...