Feminist and Protofeminist Literature

Showing 73–89 of 89 results

  • The Type-Writer Girl

    Juliet Appleton is an officer’s daughter who is forced to make her own way in the world after her father’s death. Having been trained in…

  • An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting

    Perhaps the first extended non-fiction prose satire written by an English woman, Jane Collier’s An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (1753) is a…

  • Emmeline

    The plot of Charlotte Smith’s autobiographical first novel Emmeline (1788) includes the usual thrills of the eighteenth-century courtship novel: abduction, duels, and a “fairy tale…

  • Diana of Dobson’s

    Very successful when first performed in London in 1908, Diana of Dobson’s introduces its audience to the overworked and underpaid female assistants at Dobson’s Drapery…

  • A Serious Occupation

    This anthology of literary criticism by Victorian women of letters brings together a wealth of difficult-to-find writings. Originally published from the 1830s through the 1890s,…

  • A Letter to the Women of England and The Natural Daughter

    Mary Robinson’s A Letter to the Women of England (1799) is a radical response to the rampant anti-feminist sentiment of the late 1790s. In this…

  • A Serious Proposal to the Ladies

    Mary Astell’s A Serious Proposal to the Ladies is one of the most important and neglected works advocating the establishment of women’s academies. Its reception…

  • Bell in Campo and The Sociable Companions

    Written during the English Civil War and Interregnum when the public theatres were closed and Margaret Cavendish was living away from England in exile, Bell…

  • A Room of One’s Own

    “But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction—what has that got to do with a room of one’s own? I…

  • Anna Letitia Barbauld: Selected Poetry and Prose

    At her death in 1825, Anna Letitia Barbauld was considered one of the great writers of her time. Distinguished as a poet and essayist, she…

  • The Clever Woman of the Family

    Charlotte Mary Yonge was one of the most prolific writers of the nineteenth century. Though perhaps best known for her popular children’s books, she also…

  • Plays on the Passions

    Baillie’s eminently readable dramas stand at the crossroads of the Scottish Enlightenment and early Romanticism, and compellingly engage with questions of women’s rights. Her exploration…

  • Evelina

    The reputation of Frances Burney (1752-1840) was largely established with her first novel, Evelina. Published anonymously in 1778, it is an epistolary account of a…

  • East Lynne

    Lady Isabel Carlyle, a beautiful and refined young woman, leaves her hard-working but neglectful lawyer-husband and her infant children to elope with an aristocratic suitor.…

  • The Subjection of Women

    This volume of The Subjection of Women provides a reliable text in an inexpensive edition, with explanatory notes but no additional editorial apparatus.

  • The Victim of Prejudice – Second Edition

    Mary Hays was an outspoken Radical intellectual in the turbulent decade of the 1790’s. She argued vehemently for the need to recognise the moral and…

  • Millenium Hall

    In 1750 at the age of twenty-seven Sarah Scott published her first novel, a conventional romance. A year later she left her husband after only…