A guide to British women authors, their works, and the writing about them.

Novel Histories: British Women Writing History, 1760–1830 argues that British women’s history and historical fiction in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries changed not only the shape but also the political significance of women’s writing. At a time when women’s participation in the republic of letters was both celebrated and reviled, these authors took cues from developments that revolutionized British history writing to push the limits of narrated history to respond to contemporary national politics. Through an examination of the conventions of historical and literary genres; historiography during the period; and the gendering of civic and literary roles, this study shows not only a social, political, and literary lineage among women’s history writing and fiction but also among women’s writing and the writing of history.

Reader's Guide Literature in English provides expert guidance to, and critical analysis of, the vast number of books available within the subject of English literature, from Anglo-Saxon times to the current American, British and Commonwealth scene. It is designed to help students, teachers and librarians choose the most appropriate books for research and study.

This study provides a comprehensive and wide-ranging resource which includes information on many previously neglected British women writers (novelists, poets, dramatists, autobiographers) and topics. It provides contextualizing material, with concise introductions to related topics, including organizations, movements, genres and publications.

Chosen by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title Until recently, history writing has been understood as a male enclave from which women were restricted, particularly prior to the nineteenth century. The first book to look at British women writers and their contributions to historiography during the long eighteenth century, British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670-1820, asks why, rather than writing history that included their own sex, some women of this period chose to write the same kind of history as men—one that marginalized or excluded women altogether. But as Devoney Looser demonstrates, although British women's historically informed writings were not necessarily feminist or even female-focused, they were intimately involved in debates over and conversations about the genre of history. Looser investigates the careers of Lucy Hutchinson, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Charlotte Lennox, Catharine Macaulay, Hester Lynch Piozzi, and Jane Austen and shows how each of their contributions to historical discourse differed greatly as a result of political, historical, religious, class, and generic affiliations. Adding their contributions to accounts of early modern writing refutes the assumption that historiography was an exclusive men's club and that fiction was the only prose genre open to women.

The growing interest today in women's writing has led to a re-evaluation of British literary history, emphasizing the vitality of both well-known women writers and bringing to light the work of numerous hitherto forgotten figures. Assuming no previous knowledge on the part of readers, TheOxford Guide to British Women Writers provides in a single volume an accessible and stimulating beginner's guide to the widest range of British women's writing, from the earliest times to the present. Entries on some 400 writers from Aphra Behn to Jeanette Winterson and Mary Wollstonecraft to Barbara Cartland offer a brief outline of each woman's life, her major publications, contemporary critical reception, and an evaluation of significant features of her work, together with suggestions forfurther reading. The range of writers discussed includes novelists, poets, and playwrights, together with mystics, diarists, travel writers, scientists and translators. The editor has carefully selected a number of non-British writers such as Sylvia Plath, who have had an important influence on theBritish literary scene. In addition, the Guide features subject entries and cross-references to pseudonyms and maiden names, and provides an extensive general bibliography on women's writing. It also features entries on such topics as sub-genres of women's writing and women's literary magazines andorganizations. Concise, informative and well-organized, The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers will be an invaluable introduction for all readers and students of women's writing. In addition, the Guide features entries on such topics as sub-genres of women's writing and women's literary magazines andorganizations. With cross-references to pseudonyms and maiden names, this clear, concise book will be an invaluable source for all readers, scholars, and students of women's writing.