The first professional female writer Christine de Pizan 1363 1431 was widowed at age twenty five and supported herself and her family by enlisting powerful patrons for her poetry Her Livre de la Cite des Dames 1405 is the earliest European work on women s history by a woman An allegorical poem that revises masculine traditions it asserts and defends the authority of women in general and of its author in particular In this generously illustrated book Maureen Quilligan provides a persuasive and penetrating interpretation of the Cite