Margaret Tyler

Margaret Tyler (c. 1540 - c. 1590) was the first Englishwoman to translate a Spanish romance and the first woman to publish a romance in England. She also published a defense of the seriousness and importance of women’s writing. She proposed that both men and women should be treated as rational beings, arguing that “it is all one for a woman to pen a story, as for a man to address his story to a woman.” In 1578, the publication of The Mirrour of Princely Deedes and Knighthood, Margaret Tyler's translation of Diego Ortúñez de Calahorra's Spanish romance, Espejo de Príncipes y Cavalleros, was met with criticism because its masculine and secular topic was considered inappropriate for a woman. Other women had translated religious literature, as this conformed with the notion that female education should promote piety. Treaties and handbooks on education stressed the danger in allowing eager female students to read foreign tales of love. Tyler protested in her letter “to the reader” against restrictions imposed on the literary efforts of women. Life Tyler's biography remains speculative. The identification of even her class and religion are difficult and controversial. The only certainties about her life are described in the dedicatory letter she wrote to Lord Thomas Howard in her translation of the first part of The Mirrour of Princely Deeds and Knighthood. In this dedication, Tyler explains that she was a servant to the aristocratic Howard family and describes herself as "middle-aged". Based on these two facts, some scholars have identified her as the wife of another servant, John Tyler, who was responsible for the duke's tenant and land records. References to "Tyler's wife" in a contemporary letter indicate that she may have served in the Howard family in the 1560s and served the Woodhouses and Bacons in the 1570s. A will written by a Margaret Tyler in 1595 at Castle Camps, a town near Cambridge, indicates that she may have had a son, Robert Tyler, and a daughter surnamed Ross.