In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister: a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. But if only she had found the means to create, urges Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling. In this classic essay, Virginia Woolf takes on the establishment,...

A "valuable and intriguing" study of the lives and works of literary women who shaped expatriate Paris (NPR). Focusing on some two dozen American, English, and French women whose talent shaped the Paris expatriate experience in the early twentieth century, from Anais Nin to Alice B. Toklas and beyond, this book shines new light on how gender was experienced and expressed during an important moment in modern literary history. "Shari Benstock...

Introduces important women in literary history, including Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson, and Roxane Gay.

"In Silences, Tillie Olsen ... confronts ... the crucial relationship between circumstances--class, color, sex, the times and climate into which one is born--and the creation of written literature. These essays ... explore the problems of literary 'silences' in the careers of both the acknowledged great and those who ceased to write ... Tillie Olsen focuses on the silences that are most immediate to her own experience: how a negative literary climate,...

Examines why African American women would choose conditions of bondage over individual freedom. Why would someone choose bondage over individual freedom? What type of freedom can be found in choosing conditions of enslavement? In Something Akin to Freedom, Stephanie Li explores literary texts where African American women decide to remain in or enter into conditions of bondage, sacrificing individual autonomy to achieve other goals. In fresh readings...

During the Civil War, its devastating aftermath, and the decades following, many southern white women turned to writing as a way to make sense of their experiences. Combining varied historical and literary sources, Sarah Gardner argues that women served as guardians of the collective memory of the war and helped define and reshape southern identity. Gardner considers such well-known authors as Caroline Gordon, Ellen Glasgow, and Margaret Mitchell...

"Ann Burack-Weiss, a gerontologist with more than forty years of experience, analyzes and engages with the writings of a dozen well-known authors for insights into old age. Featured are Maya Angelou, Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, Joan Didion, M.F.K Fisher, Doris Grumbach, Carolyn Heilburn, Doris Lessing, Florida Scott-Maxwell, May Sarton, Anne Roiphe, and Alexis Kate Shulman, among others, all of whom wrote about essential issues in old age including...

Masterpieces of Women's Literature features critical summaries and descriptions of the greatest works of literature by women authors. All the important facts and dates of authorship, along with analyses of characters, settings, themes, and plots, are included for works in every genre, including autobiographies, novels, poetry, plays, essays, and short stories. Containing works by women of all eras and backgrounds, this book covers everything from...