The Feminist Companion to Literature in English : Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present

B.T. Batsford, London, first edition, 1990. Cloth, 8vo, 24 cm,. xvi, 1231 pp. Women writers have flourished wherever English is established as a major language. This, the first fully international guide to the subject features the contribution of women both to the older literatures of Britain, Ireland and North America, and to those of more recent origin in the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Australasia, Asia and Africa. The bulk of the entries [ some 2,700] are biographical, but [about 60] key topic entries are also included, dealing with important genres, movements and institutions which have affected women's writing (for example: autobiography, circulating libraries, feminist theory and film criticism, publishing, slave narratives). All entries are alphabetically arranged, and a separate list of entry headings and cross-references enables readers to pursue particular interests. The authors covered are of many kinds - not only poets, novelists and dramatists but other writers such as diarists, translators and spiritual autobiographers. Some are already part of the established canon of literature and have a large body of criticism devoted to them, while others have been victims of repeated condescension and inaccuracy or are almost entirely unknown. Each biographical entry as well as outlining the life and work of its subject, aims to set her in the context of her time and to make clear her importance or interest today. Her writings, both published and unpublished, are briefly commented on and sometimes quoted, and selected criticism cited where it exists.The Feminist Companion to Literature in English is the fruit of very extensive new research into original sources by the three editors and some fifty specialist contributors: it clears up a multitude of erroneous dates and attributions, reveals hitherto undiscovered family and other relationships, and questions long- held assumptions. While strongly reinforcing many feminist ideas about women's writing, it will refashion some, and challenge others." - from the blurb. Very Good in Very Good dustwrapper.