In general, “closet dramas,” because they have been falsely considered failed stage plays, have received minimal scholarly attention. This dissertation situates itself as a re-evaluation of female authors’ manuscript and printed plays: Elizabeth Cary’s Mariam, Jane Cavendish and Elizabeth (Cavendish) Brackley’s The Concealed Fancies, Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure and Anne Finches’ Aristomenes, Or The Royal Shepherd. These plays use the coded rhetorical tool of literary equivocation to conceal yet reveal subversive political information which would attract the attention of the censor if acted upon the stage.