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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Of Women and the Essay: An Anthology from 1655 to 2000

Of Women and the Essay: An Anthology from 1655 to 2000

Spinner, Jenny

Paperback

Letters & EssaysFiction Anthologies

ISBN10: 0820354252
ISBN13: 9780820354255
Publisher: Univ Of Georgia Pr
Published: Nov 15 2018
Pages: 384
Weight: 1.18
Height: 0.93 Width: 7.91 Depth: 9.25
Language: English

Of Women and the Essay brings together forty-six American and British women essayists whose work spans nearly four centuries. The contributions of these essayists prove that women have been significant participants in the essay tradition since the genre's modern beginnings in the sixteenth century. Many of these essayists, such as Eliza Haywood, Fanny Fern, Gertrude Bustill Mossell, Agnes Repplier, and Alice Meynell, achieved significant success as writers within whatever essay form ruled the day; others bent the rules, though often imperceptibly, to make room for themselves. Collectively they represent a missing piece in the larger history of the essay.

In Of Women and the Essay Jenny Spinner contextualizes the broad range of literary essays included within the chronological development of the genre. She makes a compelling argument that women have constructed their own tradition in the essay genre, often utilizing periodic traits of the essay to their own advantage. At the same time, she suggests that the personal essay's demands on the essayist required both a public and personal authorization that proved challenging for women essayists in general and for women of color in particular. The appendix catalogs the works of nearly 200 female essayists and should inspire further reading. As a whole, the volume lifts women writers from the cutting-room floor of essay scholarship and returns them to their rightful place in the essay canon.

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