A pioneering work of feminist criticism that explores what it meant for women writers to draw material from the distinctly feminine aspects of the human condition. Covers topics such as history and tradition, female realism, female gothic, and themes from writers such as Jane Austen, George Sand, George Eliot, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Bronte, Virginia Woolf, Louisa May Alcott, Frances Burney, de Stael, Isak Dinesen, Wollstonecraft, many more. Discusses the idea of "heroinism"  Illustrated. Doubleday. 1985. Pb. USED. $3.00