An anthology of 50 classic women writers with an active table of contents to make it easy to quickly find the book you are looking for. Works include: Adam Bede by George Eliot Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery Anthem by Ayn Rand Awakening and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin Black Beauty by Anna Sewell The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart The Clever Woman of the Family by Charlotte Yonge The Colors of Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley The Convert by Elizabeth Robins A Circuit Rider's Wife by Corra Harris Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster A Dog of Flanders by Louisa de la Rame Each Man Kills by Victoria Glad Emma McChesney & Co by Edna Ferber The Fire Bird by Gene Stratton-Porter Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Heidi by Johanna Spyri The House of Mirth By Edith Wharton Hubert's Wife by Minnie Mary Lee In the Mountains by Elizabeth von Arnim Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs The Indiscreet Letter by Eleanor Hallowell Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis Love Affairs of an Old Maid by Lilian Bell Man and Maid by Elinor Glyn Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman by Mary Russell Mitford My Antonia by Willa Cather The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe Night and Day by Virginia Woolf Phoebe, Junior by Margaret Oliphant Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette The Railway Children by E. Nesbit Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett A Simple Story by Mrs. Inchbald The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter Story of My Life by Helen Keller What Not by Rose Macaulay Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

This groundbreaking study explores the later lives and late-life writings of more than two dozen British women authors active during the long eighteenth century. Drawing on biographical materials, literary texts, and reception histories, Devoney Looser finds that far from fading into moribund old age, female literary greats such as Anna Letitia Barbauld, Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Catharine Macaulay, Hester Lynch Piozzi, and Jane Porter toiled for decades after they achieved acclaim -- despite seemingly concerted attempts by literary gatekeepers to marginalize their later contributions. Though these remarkable women wrote and published well into old age, Looser sees in their late careers the necessity of choosing among several different paths. These included receding into the background as authors of "classics," adapting to grandmotherly standards of behavior, attempting to reshape masculinized conceptions of aged wisdom, or trying to create entirely new categories for older women writers. In assessing how these writers affected and were affected by the culture in which they lived, and in examining their varied reactions to the prospect of aging, Looser constructs careful portraits of each of her Subjects and explains why many turned toward retrospection in their later works. In illuminating the powerful and often poorly recognized legacy of the British women writers who spurred a marketplace revolution in their earlier years only to find unanticipated barriers to acceptance in later life, Looser opens up new scholarly territory in the burgeoning field of feminist age studies.

A fine collection of classic novels, short stories, poems, and essays from distinguished women writers. Women writers have been making their voices heard for centuries, but their works were not always taken seriously. Over time, as women gained more social and political freedom, these works have reemerged as subjects that are considered to be worthy of closer study. Classic Works from Women Writers is a collection of more than thirty novels, short stories, poems, and essays by prominent and lesser-known female writers since the 17th century. Included in this volume are groundbreaking works such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Agatha Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the first Hercule Poirot novel; Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and her follow-up essay; and poetry from the likes of Christina Rossetti, Amy Lowell, and Sara Teasdale. The words of these authors offer a multitude of perspectives on different issues that affect not only women but the wider world as well.

"Blatt brings big data to the literary canon, exploring the wealth of fun findings that remain hidden in the works of the world's greatest writers. He assembles a database of thousands of books and hundreds of millions of words, and starts asking the questions that have intrigued curious word nerds and book lovers for generations: What are our favorite authors' favorite words? Do men and women write differently? Are bestsellers getting dumber over time? Which bestselling writer uses the most clichaes? What makes a great opening sentence? How can we judge a book by its cover? And which writerly advice is worth following or ignoring?"--Amazon.com.

The hundred books discussed here have radically altered the course of civilisation , whether they have embodied religions practised by millions, achieved the pinnacle of artistic expression, pointed the way to scientific discovery of enormous consequence, redirected beliefs about the nature of man, or forever altered the global political landscape. For each there is a historical overview, an analysis of the work's effect on our lives today and a lively discussion of the reasons for inclusion.

A strange, thrilling novel about desperate love, paranoia, and heartbreak by one of America's most singular writers. “What’s new. What else. What next. What’s happened here.” Pitch Dark is a book about love. Kate Ennis is poised at a critical moment in an affair with a married man. The complications and contradictions pursue her from a house in rural Connecticut to a brownstone apartment in New York City, to a small island off the coast of Washington, to a pitch black night in backcountry Ireland. Composed in the style of Renata Adler’s celebrated novel Speedboat and displaying her keen journalist’s eye and mastery of language, both simple and sublime, Pitch Dark is a bold and astonishing work of art.

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • From one of our most heralded writers comes the “poetic, disturbing, yet very funny” (The Washington Post Book World) life-and-death adventures of three misfit teenagers in the American desert. Alice, Corvus, and Annabel, each a motherless child, are an unlikely circle of friends. One filled with convictions, another with loss, the third with a worldly pragmatism, they traverse an air-conditioned landscape eccentric with signs and portents—from the preservation of the living dead in a nursing home to the presentation of the dead as living in a wildlife museum—accompanied by restless, confounded adults. A father lusts after his handsome gardener even as he's haunted (literally) by his dead wife; a heartbroken dog runs afoul of an angry neighbor; a young stroke victim drifts westward, his luck running from worse to awful; a sickly musician for whom Alice develops an attraction is drawn instead toward darker imaginings and solutions; and an aging big-game hunter finds spiritual renewal through his infatuation with an eight-year-old—the formidable Emily Bliss Pickless. With nature thoroughly routed and the ambiguities of existence on full display, life and death continue in directions both invisible and apparent. Gloriously funny and wonderfully serious, The Quick and the Dead limns the vagaries of love, the thirst for meaning, and the peculiar paths by which all creatures are led to their destiny. A panorama of contemporary life and an endlessly surprising tour de force: penetrating and magical, ominous and comic, this is the most astonishing book yet in Joy Williams's illustrious career. Joy Williams belongs, James Salter has written, "in the company of Céline, Flannery O'Connor, and Margaret Atwood."