Women writers have historically been marginalized. This timely book offers an introduction to influential women writers spanning the globe and time periods with entries from antiquity to the present. The book addresses how history, race, class, and other social categories complicate any single defining category of the woman writer. Presenting a spectrum of diverse women writers and situating them within cultural and critical contexts, readers will understand what defines a successful woman writer, as well as a critical or subversive one. Provided by publisher.

Mesopotamia and the ancient world -- Not the Dark Ages -- Renaissance women -- The seventeenth and eighteenth century -- Women of the nineteenth century -- Twentieth century writers and beyond.