Marketing Midwives in Seventeenth-Century London: A Re-examination of Jane Sharp's The Midwives Book

The seventeenth-century midwife Jane Sharp has been heralded as a pioneer of early modern English midwifery manuals. While the practice of childbirth remained a female domain in Sharp's day, the publishing of childbirth manuals was a decidedly male one. Most scholars agree that Sharp was, in fact, a seventeenth-century midwife with an exceptional ability to comprehend traditional medical knowledge. this article demonstrate that there is serious reason to doubt Sharp's claims regarding her first-hand knowledge of childbirth and women's bodies.