Philip Stubbs

For the Archdeacon of St Albans, see Philip Stubbs (priest).

Philip Stubbs (Stubbes) (c. 1555 – c. 1610), English pamphleteer, was born about 1555.

He was from Cheshire, possibly the area near Congleton. According to Anthony Wood he was educated at Cambridge and subsequently at Oxford, but did not take a degree and his name is not in university records. He is reputed to have been a brother or near relation of John Stubbs. He married Katherine Emmes (1570/71 –1590) in 1586.

He started writing about 1581 and in 1583 published his best-known work, The Anatomie of Abuses. This consisted of a virulent attack on the manners, customs, amusements and fashions of the period including the theatre, gambling, alcohol and fashion, and is still valuable for its copious information on the cultural attitudes of the time.

In 1591 Stubbs published A Christal Glass for Christian Women, of which at least seven editions were called for, and he followed this with other semi-devotional works. He died in about 1610.

Written Works

• 1581, Two Wunderfull and Rare Examples
• 1582, A View of Vanitie, and Allarum to England, or, Retrait from Sinne (now lost)
• 1583, The Anatomie of Abuses
• 1583, The Display of Corruptions (part 2 of The Anatomie of Abuses)
• 1583, The Rosarie of Christian Praiers and Meditations (now lost)
• 1585, The Intended Treason of Doctor Parrie
• 1585, The Theater of the Popes Monarchie
• 1591, A Christal Glasse for Christian Women—biography of his wife, Katherine Stubbes (née Emmes)
• 1592, A Perfect Pathway to Felicitie
• 1593, Motive to Good Workes

References

• Alexandra Walsham, "Stubbes, Philip (b. c.1555, d. in or after 1610)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Online version—access limited.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: