A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing

"A Literature of Their Own places the women novelists everyone has heard of ... in a new setting, considering them in relation to their relatively unknown female contemporaries. The resulting shift of perspective generates fresh social and literary understanding."--Patricia Meyer Spacks, The New York Times Book Review

"Ought to be required reading for anyone who cares about women or the history of the novel. [This book] is a rare thing: a book of literary criticism that illuminates our lives."--Erica Jong, The Los Angeles Times Book Review

"This book is absolutely and immediately essential reading.... It will remain for a very long time a book to refer to again and again for both information and ideas."--John Goode, The Times Higher Education Supplement

When first published in 1977, A Literature of Their Own quickly set the stage for the creative explosion of feminist literary studies that transformed the field in the 1980s. Launching a major new area for literary investigation, the book uncovered the long but neglected tradition of women writers in England. A classic of feminist criticism, its impact continues to be felt today.

This revised and expanded edition contains a new introductory chapter surveying the book's reception and a new postscript chapter celebrating the legacy of feminism and feminist criticism in the efflorescence of contemporary British fiction by women.