A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing
Foundational study of British women novelists and a central work in feminist literary criticism.
Author guide
Elaine Showalter Books in Order
Elaine Showalter is an American literary critic, feminist theorist, literary historian, and cultural writer. Professor emerita of English at Princeton University, she helped establish feminist literary criticism in the United States and developed the practice of gynocriticism, the study of women as writers. Her scholarship ranges across British and American women's writing, Victorian literature, gender, madness, popular culture, and the history of feminist intellectuals. She has also edited major literary anthologies and written biographies, cultural criticism, and works on teaching literature.
literary criticismfeminist theoryliterary historycultural criticismbiographyedited anthologies
Catalog record updated .
Not sure where to begin?
Start with one of these
The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980
Influential account of women, madness, medicine, and English cultural history.
A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx
Accessible, wide-ranging literary history of American women writers from the colonial period to the present.
Outside the series
Bibliography by category
Nonfiction (7)
- A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing
literary_criticism · 1977
- Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women's Writing
literary_criticism · 1991
- Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture
cultural_criticism · 1997
- Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage
cultural_history · 2001
- Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and Its Discontents
cultural_criticism · 2005
- A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx
literary_history · 2009
- The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe: A Biography
biography · 2016
Edited works (8)
- Women's Liberation and Literature
edited_collection · 1971
- These Modern Women: Autobiographical Essays from the Twenties
edited_collection · 1978
- The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory
edited_collection · 1985
- Speaking of Gender
edited_collection · 1989
- Modern American Women Writers
edited_reference_work · 1991
- Daughters of Decadence: Women Writers of the Fin-de-Siècle
edited_collection · 1993
- Scribbling Women: Short Stories by Nineteenth-Century American Women
edited_collection · 1997
- The Vintage Book of American Women Writers
edited_anthology · 2011
Collaborations (1)
- Hysteria Beyond Freud
coauthored_nonfiction · 1993
Other (4)
- The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980
scholarly_monograph · 1985
- Tradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book
scholarly_monograph · 1988
- Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle
scholarly_monograph · 1990
'Sexual anarchy' - dire predictions, disasters, apocalypse - became the hallmark of the closing decades of the nineteenth century. The New Woman and the Odd Woman threatened male identity and self-esteem; teh emergence of feminism and…
- Teaching Literature
pedagogy · 2003
Teaching Literature is an inspirational guidebook for all teachers of English and American literature in higher education. Written by leading academic, prolific author and cultural journalist, Elaine Showalter Original and provocative…
Frequently asked questions about Elaine Showalter
Who is Elaine Showalter?
Elaine Showalter is an American literary critic, feminist theorist, literary historian, and cultural commentator, born in Boston in 1941. She is professor emerita of English at Princeton University.
Sources: news.st-andrews.ac.uk (opens in a new tab)english.princeton.edu (opens in a new tab)
What is Elaine Showalter best known for?
She is best known as one of the founders of feminist literary criticism in the United States and for developing gynocriticism, a framework centered on women as writers and on women’s literary traditions.
Sources: library.brown.edu (opens in a new tab)english.princeton.edu (opens in a new tab)
Where did Elaine Showalter teach, and what other roles did she hold?
She taught at Douglass College of Rutgers University before joining Princeton in 1984, where she retired as Avalon Professor of the Humanities in 2003. She also worked as a journalist, cultural commentator, editor, and literary-prize judge.
Sources: news.st-andrews.ac.uk (opens in a new tab)penguinrandomhouse.com (opens in a new tab)
What awards and honors has Elaine Showalter received?
Her honors include the 2012 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism, an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of St Andrews, and election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Sources: writersworkshop.uiowa.edu (opens in a new tab)st-andrews.ac.uk (opens in a new tab)rsliterature.org (opens in a new tab)
Why is Elaine Showalter important to feminist literary studies?
Showalter helped broaden literary history by centering women writers and created influential methods for analyzing women’s writing. Her work helped establish feminist literary criticism as a major field of academic study.
Sources: news.st-andrews.ac.uk (opens in a new tab)library.brown.edu (opens in a new tab)