A Room of One's Own by
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, using her gift of language to dissect the world around her and give a voice to those who have none. Her message is simple: A woman must have a fixed income and a room of her own in order to have the freedom to create. Annotated and with an introduction by Susan Gubar
Notable American Women, 1607-1950 by
This superb biographical dictionary covers the lives of exceptional women throughout three and a half centuries of American history. Here are artists, lawyers, reformers, educators, entrepreneurs, physicists, writers, pioneers, presidents' ladies, film stars. Here are those known for their deeds and those famed for their looks--the genteel and the disreputable, the highborn and slave-born. Here are the famous in all areas of endeavor--names like Ruth Benedict, Jane Addams, Willa Cather, Isadora Duncan, Carole Lombard, Sojourner Truth, Pocahontas, Texas Guinan, the Everleigh sisters, Carrie Nation, Amelia Earhart. Here also are many names rescued from obscurity.
Ruth Halll: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time (Project Gutenberg) by
The first novel by Fanny Fern, otherwise known as Sara Payson Willis, is a semi-autobiographical tale of a talented writer who loses her husband and is forced to support herself and two young children in the mid 1800s. Fern writes with biting social commentary on the subject of traditional assumptions of a woman's place in society.
The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English (ebook) by
This guide to women's writing in English aims to consolidate and epitomize the rereading of women's writing that has gone on in the past twenty-five years. There are entries on writers, on individual texts, and on general terms, genres and movements, all printed in a single alphabetical sequence. The earliest written documents in medieval English (the visionary writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe) are covered in an historical and geographical sweep that takes us up to the present. The entries reflect the spread of literacy, the history of colonization, and the development of postcolonial cultures using and changing the English language. The contributors are chosen from all the countries around the world--and represent academics, novelists, poets, critics, women and men. The result is a work of reference with a feel for the vitality, wealth and diversity of women's writing. Lorna Sage is Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia. She is also a literary journalist whose articles have appeared in such periodicals as the Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books and the New York Times Book Review
The Portable Dorothy Parker by
The second revision in sixty years, this sublime collection ranges over the verse, stories, essays, and journalism of one of the twentieth century's most quotable authors. For this new twenty-first-century edition, devoted admirers can be sure to find their favorite verse and stories. But a variety of fresh material has also been added to create a fuller, more authentic picture of her life's work.
