Drawing on three decades of feminist scholarship bent on rediscovering lost and abandoned women writers, Susan Staves provides a comprehensive history of women's writing in Britain from the
Restoration to the French Revolution. This major new work of criticism also offers fresh insights about women's writing in all literary forms, not only fiction, but also poetry, drama, memoir,
autobiography, biography, history, essay, translation, and the familiar letter. Authors celebrated in their own time and now neglected, and those more recently revalued and studied, are given
equal attention. The book's organization by chronology and its attention to history challenge the way we periodize literary history. Each chapter includes a list of key works written in the
period covered, as well as a narrative and critical assessment of the works. This magisterial work includes a comprehensive bibliography and list of modern editions of the authors discussed.
