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. 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. She may also have been Spanish-born, and would have journeyed to England with the retinue of Álvaro de la Quadra, the ambassador of Philip II.

The source of Tyler's knowledge of Spanish is not known. Knowledge of the Spanish language was of value to English merchants at the time due to the importance of Spain’s economy. The full series of the Spanish originals was eventually published in eight volumes.

Dedication to Thomas Howard In the dedicatory letter to Thomas Howard, Tyler explains and justifies her actions, stating, "the earnestness of my friends persuaded me that it was convenient to lay forth my talent for increase, or to set my candle on a candlestick, and the consideration of my insufficiency drove me to think it better for my ease either quite to bury my talent...or rather to put my candle clean out than that it should bewray every unswept corner of my house; but the opinion of my friends' judgement prevailed above mine own reason.” She claims, in short, that she took on this labour to make her friends happy. She adds that she in no way meant for her work to sound ungrateful to the Howard family: “Under your Honour’s protection, I shall less fear the assault of the envious, and of your Honour’s good acceptation.” "I bear to your parents while they lived, then being their servant, and now do owe unto their offspring after their decease, for their demerits." She implicitly concedes that men might retain a right to "discourse in learning", but never directly accepts it. However, she confidently affirms that story-telling is the province of both sexes, and thus it is "all one" whether a tale is told by a woman or a man.