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A Jury of Her Peers

Celebrating American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx

By Elaine Showalter

By Elaine Showalter

By Elaine Showalter

By Elaine Showalter

Best Seller
Paperback $22.00

Jan 12, 2010 | ISBN 9781400034420

Ebook $5.99

Feb 24, 2009 | ISBN 9780307271457

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    A Jury of Her Peers by Elaine Showalter
    Paperback $22.00
    Jan 12, 2010 | ISBN 9781400034420

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      Jan 12, 2010 | ISBN 9781400034420

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    About A Jury of Her Peers

    An unprecedented literary landmark: the first comprehensive history of American women writers from 1650 to the present.
     
    In a narrative of immense scope and fascination, here are more than 250 female writers, including the famous—Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dorothy Parker, Flannery O’Connor, and Toni Morrison, among others—and the little known, from the early American bestselling novelist Catherine Sedgwick to the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Susan Glaspell. Showalter integrates women’s contributions into our nation’s literary heritage with brilliance and flair, making the case for the unfairly overlooked and putting the overrated firmly in their place.

    About A Jury of Her Peers

    An unprecedented literary landmark: the first comprehensive history of American women writers from 1650 to the present.
     
    In a narrative of immense scope and fascination, here are more than 250 female writers, including the famous—Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dorothy Parker, Flannery O’Connor, and Toni Morrison, among others—and the little known, from the early American bestselling novelist Catherine Sedgwick to the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Susan Glaspell. Showalter integrates women’s contributions into our nation’s literary heritage with brilliance and flair, making the case for the unfairly overlooked and putting the overrated firmly in their place.

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Also by Elaine Showalter

    The Vintage Book of American Women Writers
    See all books by Elaine Showalter

    Also by Elaine Showalter

    The Vintage Book of American Women Writers
    See all books by Elaine Showalter

    About Elaine Showalter

    Elaine Showalter, a professor emerita at Princeton University, is the author of numerous books, including the groundbreaking A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing and A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women Writers from… More about Elaine Showalter

    About Elaine Showalter

    Elaine Showalter, a professor emerita at Princeton University, is the author of numerous books, including the groundbreaking A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing and A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women Writers from… More about Elaine Showalter

    Product Details

    Category: Literary Criticism | History

    Paperback | $22.00
    Published by Vintage
    Jan 12, 2010 | 608 Pages | 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 | ISBN 9781400034420

    Category: Literary Criticism

    Ebook | $5.99
    Published by Vintage
    Feb 24, 2009 | 608 Pages | 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 | ISBN 9780307271457

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    Praise

    “Exhilarating, provocative, revelatory, magisterial . . . The celebrated get their due . . . and so do the forgotten.”
    —Slate

    “A work of astonishing vision, breadth, intelligence, and audacity. . . . Sure to be required reading for all who have an interest in American literary history.” 
    —Joyce Carol Oates

    “[A] grand new work of literary history . . . A critical standout . . . [Showalter] opines with zest on the personalities and books of the writers here . . . I do relish her critical gusto and guts . . . [She] has inspired me.”
    —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, National Public Radio
     
    “Remarkable. . . . A Jury of Her Peers does an enormous service, houses a drop-dead reading list and gives the reader a fluid framework for the great (much of it still undiscovered) wealth of writing by women in this country.” 
    — The Los Angeles Times

    “Impressively researched. . . . Generous, thought-provoking. . . . [Showalter is] less polarized and more nuanced than other feminist critics of her generation . . . She is a lively and incisive guide, the perfect Virgil for our quest.” —The Washington Post
     
    “Enlightening . . . the book may be dipped into at any chapter with much reward . . . . Showalter captures so well, often in just a few paragraphs, the image of the women she writes about. . . . Reading A Jury of Her Peers is not only an education in literary history, it is eminently satisfactory intellectual nourishment. 4 out of 4 stars.” —Free Press
     
    “[A] vast democratic volume . . . . Vivid . . . extremely readable and enlightening . . . . Her short, incisive biographies offer a glimpse into the exotic travails of the past and the eternal concerns of female experience . . . [A] ranging, inclusive history . . . . likely to become an important and valuable resource for anyone interested in women’s history.” —The New York Times Book Review
     
    “A delicious compendium, a book that belongs in literature courses, of course, but also in writerly libraries and in the hands of anyone who enjoys reading about writers’ lives. . . . Essential.” —Barnes & Noble Review
     
    “Clear-sighted, ambitious . . . minutely researched and rich with opinion, anecdotes, samples, and interpretation. . . . Monumental.” —Elle
     
    “Absorbing. . . . excellent. . . . insightful. . . . the prose is so good that the 500-plus-page book also works as an absorbing cover-to-cover read. . . . Showalter does not try to force any of these writers into uncomfortable slots in any kind of artificial female pantheon. These writers are all individuals, and Showalter treats them as such.” —The Christian Science Monitor
     
    “Elaine Showalter has delivered the first literary history of American women ever published, and the result is a riveting journey with scarcely a becalmed page . . . rich, readable . . . an immensely valuable work . . . vibrant regardless of where one dips in.” —The Seattle Times
     
    “Accessible and readable.  Brimming with wit and insight . . . . This monumental book will greatly enrich our understanding of American literary history and our culture.” —Tuscon Citizen, Recommended New Title
     
    “Showalter may have written the perfect book-group book: Not only is it fascinating on its own, but it also opens up possibilities for decades of further reading. . . . Like a raucous party, with some squabbling going on in the darker corners. . . . Showalter’s prose is lively, and she has no problem expressing her opinions” —The Columbus Dispatch
     
    “A breathtaking overview of the intersections of gender and genre in American letters. . . . With its frank assessments, impressive research and expansive scope, A Jury of Her Peers belongs on the shelf of any reader interested in the development of women’s writing in America.” —Ms. Magazine

    Awards

    Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title WINNER 2009

    Author Q&A

    Q: In 1977, you published A Literature of Their Own about British women writers, and now comes A Jury of Her Peers, the American counterpart. Why did you decide to write this book more than 30 years after that first volume?

    A: In A Literature of Their Own, I covered about 150 years of work by women novelists in England. I always wanted to write a literary history of American women writers, but that was a much larger task—a time span of more than 350 years, an enormous country, and a much more racially, regionally, and ethnically diverse group of authors, especially since I also wanted to include poetry and drama. So I needed a long, clear stretch of time to read, research, visit archives, ponder, and write. That time and freedom was never available while I was raising my family and completely involved and immersed in university teaching. The beginning of the 21st century seemed like the right moment for the book, and maybe the last chance for me, and in 2003, I made the decision to take early retirement from Princeton and devote myself entirely to this study of the American literary tradition.

    Q: Tell us about the process and criteria for selecting the more than 250 writers introduced in A Jury of Her Peers.

    A: I didn’t pre-select the number or the names of the writers in the book, and in fact I didn’t know how many I had included in A Jury of Her Peers until an editor at Knopf did a final count. I knew the work of many American women writers through my own reading, teaching, and research, but I wanted to go beyond the standard names and texts for this literary history. I started reading American women’s literature published in 1650, with Anne Bradstreet, and kept reading decade by decade until I got to the present. As I went along, I noted which writers impressed me with their imagination, skill, insight, daring, readability, and creative importance, and then as I thought about constructing a historical narrative that would include them, I sought out their contemporaries. From the beginning, I was looking at women who considered themselves writers, and wrote to be published, rather than women who kept diaries, or wrote letters; but of course, I couldn’t be too rigid about my criteria, since Emily Dickinson published only seven of her 2000 poems during her lifetime…

    Q: Do you believe that women have been fully embraced by the literary establishment?

    A: Julia Ward Howe, who is best-known today as the author of the “Battle-Hymn of the Republic,” was a daring poet, far ahead of her time, but her stunning book, Passion-Flowers, published anonymously in 1853, offended her husband so much that he threatened to divorce her and take custody of their children if she ever wrote anything like it again. And she didn’t. Gwendolyn Brooks, who died in 2000, is often overshadowed by African-American women writers of the Harlem Renaissance, who are more frequently taught and read, but she was a wonderful novelist as well as a very sophisticated and ambitious poet. Her novel Maud Martha, published in 1953 and set on the South Side of Chicago, is a memorable and moving portrait of a young black woman.

    Q: Authors aside, who are some of your favorite female characters encountered over the years?

    A: I like Miranda Gay, the heroine of Katherine Anne Porter’s Pale Horse, Pale Rider, who is one of the many female characters in American women’s fiction named “Miranda,” like the heroine of Shakespeare’s The Tempest encountering her brave new world. I also admire Bernice, the black housekeeper in Carson McCullers’ Member of the Wedding, and Domna Rejnev, the fierce young professor in Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe. In general, though, many of my favorite female characters tend to be funny ones, including the Widow Bedott and “Josiah Allen’s Wife” in the 19th century, who satirized everything from lazy men to women’s suffrage meetings. And of course, I love Jo March in Little Women.

    Q: A Literature of Their Own sparked some controversy when it came out, related to your writings on Virginia Woolf. Does A Jury of Her Peers include content that might stir up a few debates?

    A: I’m sure that there will be readers, reviewers, and scholars who will disagree with my choices or my opinions and judgments. For example, I’m not always enthusiastic about women writers who have been academic favorites, such as Gertrude Stein, and I try to show the importance of some writers who have been neglected, overlooked, or excluded because of their political views. But the whole point of literary history is to have controversy, argument, and lively debate.

    Q: What female writers have inspired and encouraged your own work?

    A: I’m inspired by all of them, from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx, but Margaret Fuller is my greatest heroine. She was not the most gifted as a writer, but she was the most generous and adventurous, and in the end, tragic yet triumphant. Fuller was determined to have a full life despite all the obstacles she faced as a brilliant woman in the early 19th century. Denied university education, sexual freedom, and political action, she made herself one of the most learned, loving, politically engaged woman of her time. I am indignant to think that she has no monument, and that no colleges, highways, airports, or national holidays have been named for her.

    Q: Your book is coming out in March, which is also Women’s History Month. What are your thoughts on this annual event?

    A: Women’s History Month has been useful for calling attention to a neglected part of our heritage. I hope my book will help both men and women understand what women writers have contributed to American literary history. Ideally, in the not too distant future, I’d like to see an American History Month, with the women writers I discuss celebrated as an essential part of it.

    Table Of Contents

    Introduction

    1. A New Literature Springs Up in the New World
    2. Revolution: Women’s Rights and Women’s Writing
    3. Their Native Land
    4. Finding a Form
    5. Masterpieces and Mass Markets
    6. Slavery, Race, and Women’s Writing
    7. The Civil War
    8. The Coming Woman
    9. American Sibyls
    10. New Women
    11. The Golden Morrow
    12. Against Women’s Writing: Wharton and Cather
    13. You Might as Well Live
    14. The Great Depression
    15. The 1940s: World War II and After
    16. The 1950s: Three Faces of Eve
    17. The 1960s: Live or Die
    18. The 1970s: The Will to Change
    19. The 1980s: On the Jury
    20. The 1990s: Anything She Wants

    Acknowledgments
    Notes
    Index

    Writers Discussed in the Book

    Introduction
    Susan Glaspell
    Lydia Maria Child
    Catherine Fenimore Woolson
    Mary Austin
    Zona Gale
    Elizabeth Roberts
    Julia Ward Howe
    Pauline Hopkins
    Nella Larsen
    Emily Dickinson
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Gwendolyn Brooks
    Edith Wharton
    Willa Cather

    Chapter 1: The 1600s
    Anne Bradstreet
    Mary Rowlandson

    Chapter 2: The 1700s
    Sarah Kemble Knight
    Jane Coleman Turell
    Elizabeth Magawley
    Phillis Wheatley
    Judith Sargent Murray
    Mercy Otis Warren
    Susanna Rowson
    Anna Steele
    Anna Young Smith
    Sarah Wentworth Morton
    Abigail Adams
    Sukey Vickery
    Hannah Webster Foster
    Sally Sayward Barrell
    Keating Wood
    Tabitha Tenney

    Chapter 3: 1820s-1830s
    Lydia Maria Child
    Sarah J. Hale
    Mary Griffin
    Catherine Maria Sedgwick
    Caroline Kirkland

    Chapter 4: 1840s
    Margaret Fuller
    Caroline May
    Alice Cary
    Frances Sargent Osgood
    Maria Gowen Brooks
    Elizabeth Oakes-Smith
    Lydia HuntleySigourney
    Anna Cora Mowatt
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Elizabeth Cady Stanton

    Chapter 5: 1850s, Part I
    Julia Ward Howe
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Miriam Berry Whicher
    Susan Warner
    Grace Greenwood
    Hannah Gardner Creamer
    Caroline Chesebro’
    Anna Warner
    Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
    Caroline Hentz
    E.D.E.N. Southworth
    “Fanny Fern” (Sarah Peyton Willis)
    Laura Curtis Bullard
    Lillie Devereaux Blake
    Alice Cary
    H. Marion Stephenson
    Mary Virginia Hawes Terhune
    Augusta Jane Evans
    Harriet Prescott Spofford

    Chapter 6: 1850s, Part II
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Mary Eastman
    Caroline Hentz
    Frances Watkins Harper
    Lydia Maria Child
    Harriet Jacobs
    Harriet E. Wilson
    “Hannah Crafts”

    Chapter 7:
    The Civil War
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Lucy Larcom
    Caroline A. Mason
    Julia LeGrand
    Louisa May Alcott
    E.D.E.N. Southworth
    Augusta Jane Evans
    Rebecca Harding Davis
    Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
    Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard
    Emily Dickinson
    Mary Terhune
    Martha Finley
    Mary Abigail Dodge

    Chapter 8: The 1870s
    Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
    Julia Ward Howe
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Gail Hamilton
    Alice Cary
    Marietta Holley
    Susan B. Anthony
    Lillie Devereaux Blake
    Sherwood Bonner

    Chapter 9: The 1880s
    Constance Fenimore Woolson
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Emma Lazarus
    Rose Terry Cooke
    Sarah Orne Jewett
    Willa Cather
    Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
    Mary Noailles Murfree
    Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
    Helen Fiske Hunt Jackson

    Chapter 10: The 1890s
    Charlotte Perkins Gilman
    Gertrude Atherton
    Kate Chopin
    Elizabeth Cady Stanton
    Louise Imogen Guiney
    Ella Wheeler Wilcox
    Elizabeth Robins
    Edith Wharton
    Frances Harper
    Pauline Hopkins
    Eveleen Mason
    Lois Waisbrooker
    Alice Ilgenfritz Jones
    Ella Merchant
    Eliza J. Nicholson
    Elizabeth Gilmer
    Julia Ward Howe
    Maud Howe
    Grace King
    Louisa May Alcott
    Alice Dunbar-Nelson
    Helen Hunt Jackson
    Mary Wilkins Freeman
    Ellen Glasgow
    Helen Gray Cone

    Chapter 11: The 1900s
    Margaret Fuller
    Mary Johnston
    Charlotte Perkins Gilman
    Francis Whiting Halsey
    Edith Wharton
    Gertrude Atherton
    Mary Hunter Austin
    Gertrude Stein
    Hilda Doolittle
    Marianne Moore
    Amy Lowell
    Mary Antin
    Gertrude Simmons Bonnin
    Edith Maud Easton
    Elizabeth Robins
    Rachel Crothers
    Susan Glaspell
    Kate Chopin
    Willa Cather
    Kate Douglas Wiggin
    Geneva Stratton-Porter
    Jean Webster
    Eleanor H. Porter

    Chapter 12: The 1910s
    Edith Wharton
    Willa Cather
    Margaret Fuller
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Kate Chopin

    Chapter 13: The 1920s
    Sylvia Plath
    Gwendolyn Brooks
    Josephine Herbst
    Ellen Glasgow
    Elizabeth Madox Roberts
    Edith Summers Kelley
    Edna St. Vincent Millay
    Gertrude Stein
    Hilda Doolittle (H.D.)
    Elinor Wylie
    Amy Lowell
    Genevieve Taggard
    Dorothy Parker
    Louise Bogan
    Sara Teasdale
    Louisa May Alcott
    Genevieve Taggard
    Mina Loy
    Dorothy Dunbar Bromley
    Nella Larsen
    Josephine Herbst
    Katherine Anne Porter
    Sophie Treadwell
    Zoe Akins
    Zona Gale
    Dorothy Canfield Fisher
    Pearl Buck
    Willa Cather
    Anzia Yezierska
    Emily Dickinson
    Jessie Fauset
    Kate Chopin

    Chapter 14: The 1930s
    Meridel Le Sueur
    Susan Glaspell
    Willa Cather
    Emily Dickinson
    Fanny Hurst
    Katherine Anne Porter
    Zoe Akins
    Dorothy Parker
    Tess Slesinger
    Lillian Hellman
    Clare Boothe
    Pearl Buck
    Margaret Mitchell
    Edith Wharton
    Jessie Fauset
    Nella Larsen
    Margaret Walker
    Muriel Rukeyser
    Sara Teasdale
    Edna St. Vincent Millay
    Martha Gellhorn
    Josephine Herbst
    Tillie Olsen
    Louise Bogan
    Djuna Barnes
    Susan Sontag
    Harriet Sohmers
    Mary Wilkins Freeman
    Zora Neale Hurston

    Chapter 15: The 1940s
    Louise Bogan
    Jane Cooper
    Margaret Walker
    Gwendolyn Brooks
    Sylvia Plath
    Alice Bradley Sheldon
    Martha Gellhorn
    Hisaye Yamamoto
    Eudora Welty
    Carson McCullers
    Flannery O’Connor
    Katherine Anne Porter
    Agnes Smedley
    Jean Stafford
    Margaret Walker
    Harper Lee
    Ann Petry
    Dorothy West
    Sally Benson
    Ayn Rand
    Betty Smith
    Betty Macdonald
    Jessamyn West
    Laura Z. Hobson
    Kathleen Winsor
    Fay Kanin
    Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Chapter 16: The 1950s
    Carson McCullers
    Shirley Jackson
    Sylvia Plath
    Gwendolyn Brooks
    Flannery O’Connor
    Adrienne Rich
    Joyce Carol Oates
    Kathleen Norris
    Fannie Hurst
    Jessie Fauset
    Nella Larsen
    Harriette Simpson Arnow
    Mary McCarthy
    Jean Stafford
    Grace Metalious
    Leonie Adams
    Babette Deutsch
    Muriel Rukeyser
    May Swenson
    Mona Van Duyn
    Jean Garrigue
    Barbara Howe
    Anne Sexton
    Marianne Moore
    Louise Bogan
    Elizabeth Bishop
    Patricia Highsmith
    Ann Weldy
    Lorraine Hansberry

    Chapter 17: The 1960s
    Gwendolyn Brooks
    Anne Sexton
    Denise Levertov
    Muriel Rukeyser
    Harper Lee
    Katherine Anne Porter
    Mary McCarthy
    Louise Bogan
    Joyce Carol Oates
    S. E. Hinton
    Adrienne Rich
    Maxine Kumin
    Tillie Olsen
    Sara Teasdale
    Edna St. Vincent Millay
    Betty Friedan
    Sarah Orne Jewett
    Jean Stafford

    Chapter 18: The 1970s
    Adrienne Rich
    Michelle Cliff
    Kate Millet
    Robin Morgan
    Shulamith Firestone
    Toni Cade Bambara
    Charlotte Perkins Gilman
    Toni Morrison
    Erica Jong
    Nikki Giovanni
    Maya Angelou
    Audre Lord
    Ntozake Shange
    Alice Walker
    Zora Neale Hurston
    Nella Larsen
    Diane Johnson
    Gail Godwin
    Judith Rossner
    Lois Gould
    Joyce Carol Oates
    Dorothy Bryant
    Ursula LeGuin
    Joanna Russ
    Marge Piercy
    James Tiptree, Jr./ Alice Bradley Sheldon
    Willa Cather
    Vonda N. McIntyre
    Chelsea Quinn Yarboro
    Joanna Russ
    Grace Paley
    Maxine Hong Kingston
    Anne Tyler
    Joan Didion
    Susan Sontag
    Cynthia Ozick

    Chapter 19: The 1980s
    Sharon Olds
    Alice Walker
    Phillis Wheatley
    Joyce Carol Oates
    Elizabeth Bishop
    Cynthia Ozick
    Ursula LeGuin
    Beth Henley
    Marsha Norman
    Wendy Wasserstein
    Sara Paretsky
    Sue Grafton
    Patricia Cornwell
    Toni Morrison
    Louise Erdrich
    Alice Walker
    Marilynne Robinson
    Gloria Naylor
    Sandra Cisneros
    Amy Tan
    Amy Hempel
    Bharati Mukherjee
    Mary Robison
    Jayne Anne Phillips
    Ann Beattie
    Bobbie Ann Mason
    Gloria Naylor

    Chapter 20: The 1990s
    Toni Morrison
    Lynn Hejinian
    Marilyn Hacker
    Sharon Olds
    Louise Glück
    Anne Carson
    Jorie Graham
    Rita Dove
    Jodie Picoult
    Jennifer Weiner
    Terry McMillan
    Susannah Moore
    A. M. Homes
    Joyce Carol Oates
    Susan Sontag
    Susan Choi
    Wendy Wasserstein
    Joanne Dobson
    Gish Jen
    Jane Smiley
    Harriet Beecher Stowe
    Sena Jeter Naslund
    Annie Proulx
    Anne Bradstreet
    Mary Rowlandson

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