A dazzling study of a truly neglected subject, which ably demonstrates the gendered dimension of early modern spy-craft, and the unique ways in which women were able to operate. It is written by one of the foremost early modern textual-historical scholars of her generation and marshals an almost unmatched expertise in working with an impressive range of European and international archives of the period. The book delivers a series of fascinating case studies - including Charles I's prison correspondence, Secretary Thurloe, as well as female practitioners Susan Hyde, Elizabeth Murray, Elizabeth Carey, Anne Halkett, and Aphra Behn - all of which rest on a remarkable and overwhelming weight of archival research. This is an important book that will be widely read and cited, and which will have significant impact on many fields not least those of early modern gender and women's writing, but also political and diplomatic history. Professor James Daybell, University of Plymouth sakriti opis