PHILADELPHIA  The University of Pennsylvanias library has added to its collection of more than 5 million books a unique and rare copy of the Urania, a major work of early English fiction.  

The Urania was written in 1621 by Lady Mary Wroth, one of the most prominent women writers from the time of Shakespeare.  Women writers of this era and their works were only rediscovered in the past 25 years.  Their works have changed perceptions about writers and readers of early English literature.  

This edition of the book contains Wroths own handwritten corrections and changes to the text, giving scholars a glimpse of a Renaissance writer at work.

"It's a small miracle for any printed book from the English Renaissance

to survive more than 350 years," said Daniel Traister, curator in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department at Penn's Library.  "A copy with its own author's handwritten annotations is even more astounding, and its survival is both miraculous and very important," Traister said.

Only 29 copies of Urania are known to survive.  Its believed that only 400-500 copies were produced in the original press run.

Wroths writing was controversial at the time because of its portrayal of powerful members of the English nobility, whose private lives Wroth described in thinly disguised fictions.  

Also, Wroths personal life was scandalous.  After her husband died, she bore two children to the Earl of Pembroke, to whom she was not married.

James Gaines, professor of French at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Va., and a Penn alum, donated the book in honor of his late wife, Wroth scholar Josephine Roberts.

"Penn's Library owes a huge debt of gratitude to James Gaines.   This is a most important gift to all of us and to the future of both English Renaissance and women's studies," Traister said.