The manuscript for Rivall Friendship was first acquired by the
Newberry Library in 1937. At the time of the acquisition, the author of
this seventeenth-century romance was anonymous. Scholar Jean R. Brink
now suggests, based on dating of the manuscript and her analysis of its
feminist themes, that the author was a woman. Specifically, Brink
attributes the text to Bridget Manningham, who was the older sister of
Thomas Manningham, a Jacobean and Caroline bishop, and the granddaughter
of John Manningham, a diarist who recorded performances of Shakespeare's
plays.
Rivall Friendship is a post-English Civil War romance that examines
proto-feminist issues, such as patriarchal dominance in the family and
marriage. Manningham is scrupulous about maintaining verisimilitude, and
unlike more fantastical romances of the period that feature monsters,
giants, and magic, this text aspires to a level of probability in its
historical and geographical details. The text of Rivall Friendship is
accessible to most modern readers, particularly to students and scholars
accustomed to working with seventeenth-century texts.