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(More customer reviews)The female literary tradition, long neglected, emerges as one that has not only developed concurrently with, but has also influenced male literati. In this large and fascinating volume we meet the minds that analyzed and chronicled the lives these women lived and observed.
One might argue about the selections included and excluded here. Pearl Buck, the only woman to win both a Nobel Prize (1938) and a Pulitzer (1932) is excluded.
The book is divided into 6 eras, each with a lengthy "period introduction" giving historical and thematic backgrounds for the works included in that section.
From the five earliest women writers (dating from 700 to 1600), women began to shape and define their literary voices. England's first professional woman writer, Aphra Behn, whose literary career began in 1670, is the writer who women must honor above all others. According to Virginia Woolf, "it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds."
Here the reader will find rare works such as Jane Austen's "Love and Friendship" and George Eliot's "The Lifted Veil." Three notable novels are included in their entirety: JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte, THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin, and THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison.
Poems, stories, memoirs, essays, plays, letters, novels -- all literary works originally composed in English -- over 150 authors decrying, exalting, agonizing over, and celebrating the things we all have in common: Life...love...and death.
This is a fascinating collection and one that will stand reading and re-reading over a long period of time.
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This edition has been expanded to extend coverage of the Renaissance, the 17th and 18th centuries, and the 20th century. The text also contains 11 complete works such as "Oroonoko", "Jane Eyre", "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe", "The Awakening" and Caryl Churchill's play, "Top Girls".
