Privileging both a transnational and a sociological approach, this volume explores the position of women in the early modern literary field, emphasising the international scope of their literature and examining their historical position, influence, network and dialogues.

Women Write Back explores the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century women's responses to texts written by well-known Enlightment figures. Hilger investigates the authorial strategies employed by Karoline von Günderrode, Ellis Cornelia Knight, Julie de Krüdener, and Helen Maria Williams, whose works engage Voltaire's Mahomet, Johnson's Rasselas, Goethe's Werther, and Rousseau's Julie. The analysis of these women's texts sheds light on the literary culture of a period that deemed itself not only enlightened but also egalitarian.

Discusses the obstacles women have had to overcome in order to become writers, and identifies the sexist rationalizations used to trivialize their contributions

Following #1 Sunday Times bestseller The Burning Chambers, New York Times bestseller Kate Mosse returns with The City of Tears, a sweeping historical epic about love in a time of war. "Mosse is a master storyteller."—Madeline Miller, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Circe Alliances and Romance August 1572: Minou Joubert and her husband Piet travel to Paris to attend a royal wedding which, after a decade of religious wars, is intended to finally bring peace between the Catholics and the Huguenots. Loyalty and Deception Also in Paris is their oldest enemy, Vidal, in pursuit of an ancient relic that will change the course of history. Revenge and Persecution Within days of the marriage, thousands will lie dead in the street, and Minou’s family will be scattered to the four winds . . .

"A sumptuous selection of short fiction and poetry. . . . Its invitation to share the passion of women's voices characterizes the entire volume."--"USA Today."

Interest in early modern women writers is on the rise. However, familiarity with their works varies greatly from one country to another, and resources to assess their historical significance remain insufficient. Yet empirical evidence suggests that women writers who are no longer well-known today played surprisingly varied roles in the literary field of early modern Europe. The papers collected in this volume address early modern female authorship from the late Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century, ranging geographically from Portugal to Russia, and from Italy to Denmark. In particular, they focus on three themes: the creation of female spaces or communities; women's appropriation of existing or developing literary genres; and transnational perspectives on early modern women's writings. Contributors include: Vanda Anastácio, Bernadette Andrea, Mónica Bolufer, Philiep Bossier, Hans Bots, Kathleen Garay, Nina Geerdink, Perry Gethner, Elena Gretchanaia, Ineke Janse, Madeleine Jeay, Anne-Marie Mai, Christine Mongenot, Meredith Ray, Ina Schabert, and Lynn Lara Westwater.

David Plante's dazzling portraits of three influential women in the literary world, now back in print for the first time in decades. Difficult Women presents portraits of three extraordinary, complicated, and, yes, difficult women, while also raising intriguing and, in their own way, difficult questions about the character and motivations of the keenly and often cruelly observant portraitist himself. The book begins with David Plante’s portrait of Jean Rhys in her old age, when the publication of The Wide Sargasso Sea, after years of silence that had made Rhys’s great novels of the 1920s and ’30s as good as unknown, had at last gained genuine recognition for her. Rhys, however, can hardly be said to be enjoying her new fame. A terminal alcoholic, she curses and staggers and rants like King Lear on the heath in the hotel room that she has made her home, while Plante looks impassively on. Sonia Orwell is his second subject, a suave exploiter and hapless victim of her beauty and social prowess, while the unflappable, brilliant, and impossibly opinionated Germaine Greer sails through the final pages, ever ready to set the world, and any erring companion, right.