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A Handfull of Holesome (though Homelie) Hearbs is a prayer book compiled by Anne Wheathill and published by Henry Denham in 1584.

Author
Not known as the author of any other works. Limited clues from the book's contents about the author:
 * She is styled on the title page and at the close of the preface as a "gentlewoman". although this title was sometimes added by publishers to the title page of a book so that readers did not think the female author was uneducated.
 * Claims to be unmarried in her preface, and this is likely to have been the case.
 * Probably a practicing Anglican, as it would have been unlikely for Henry Denham to publish the work if she had not been.

Contents
Contains forty-nine numbered prayers.

Not specifically aimed at women, and does not address issues specific to women in her prayers. Unusually for a prayer book of the time, there are no prayers for women in childbirth, probably because of her unmarried status.

Contains frequent quotations from, and allusions to, the Bible, showing a good knowledge of both the Old and New Testaments.

Belief in predestination.

Rather than ordering by occasions (times of day, special events, church calendar etc.), she uses a "highly sophisticated numerological scheme" consisting of a "week of weeks", with seven groups of seven prayers, reflecting the seven days of the Creation narrative in the Book of Genesis. Although the collection does start with morning and evening prayers.

The British Library Journal described the prayers as "remarkably readable, clear and unpretentious".

Publication
The collection was published in 1584 by Henry Denham, who was a leading publisher of religious works at the time. The printer's mark, however, is that of John Day. Colin and Jo Atkinson have suggested that Day had initiated the work, but his son Richard Day passed the right to print the work to Denham, due to complications over the inheritance when his father died in 1584, or perhaps because of workload or poor health.

Shows "Denham's usual care and fine work". Printed in Gothic script, as was typical of English religious works.

duodecimo, 144 numbered leaves, 6 leaves of front matter. Each page has a woodcut border.

A facsimile edition was published in 1996 by Scolar Press, as volume 9 of The Early Modern Englishwoman series, with an introduction by Patrick Cullen.

Only 2 original copies recorded: one in the British Library, one at the Folger Library.