A Book That Got Around: The Many Contexts of "Aristotle’s Masterpiece"

In this talk, guest speaker Mary Fissell will use the inscriptions in the Penn copy of the 1684 edition of Aristotle’s Masterpiece to explore the material contexts of the book’s uses. While it was intended for married women — and used by them — the Masterpiece quickly became popular with young unmarried people as well. Fissell revisits the well-known “Bad Books” incident in colonial Massachusetts to argue that the text was also used for harassment purposes by men who had little chance of marriage. Part of the book’s enduring popularity was the way it could be used in such different ways by its readers.

About the Speaker

Mary E. Fissell is the Inaugural J. Mario Molina Professor of the History of Medicine in the Department of the History of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University, where she also holds appointments in the Departments of History and History of Science and Technology. She currently serves as president of the AAHM. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the NLM, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Davis Center at Princeton University. Her scholarly work has focused on the patient's perspective in the history of medicine; gender, sexuality, and the history of the body; popular culture; and books and reading in early modern England and the Atlantic world. She’s recently published Pushback (Seal Books, 2025), a history of abortion from antiquity to antibiotics. She has written and podcasted on topics such as pregnancy determination, popular books about sex, and the history of early-modern vermin.