Rachel Speght's Mortality Memorandum

While not quite as well-known as her first work, Rachel Speght’s second work Mortalities Memorandum with a dreame prefixed continues to utilize biblical themes as well as being Speght’s strike in the war for gender equality. Speght’s second and last known work is a volume of two poems about the Christian view of death and an argument for the education of women. Mortalities Memorandum with a dreame prefixed, was published in 1621 when Rachel was just 24 years old. The works preface is addressed to Speght’s Godmother Mary Moundford where Speght addresses herself as “Your God daughter in dutie obliged.” (Speght) While not much this brief preface gives some insight to Rachel’s relationship with her Godmother. The inspiration for Mortalities Memorandum
with a dreame prefixed, came from two different sources and are infinitely different. The work was written with two things in mind, the first being inspiration from the author’s mother and the second the need to justify that Speght was in fact the author of her first work. Mortalities Memorandum the title poem was inspired by the death of Speght’s mysterious mother, pushing her to examine the Christian view of death. Both poem’s were written to justify that Rachel was in fact the author of her previous work Mouzell for Melastomus. Some believed that her father James Speght was the actual author of the piece rather than his daughter.