From Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf to Toni Morrison and Lorrie Moore, this wide-ranging collection features the most brilliant fiction, poetry, memoir, letters, and essays by women writers with a pitch-perfect ear and a rich understanding of the unique female perspective. Writers included:

Julian of Norwich € Anne Bradstreet € Aphra Behn Lady Mary Wortley Montagu € Mary Wollstonecraft € Jane Austen Mary Shelley € Margaret Fuller € Harriet Beecher Stowe Harriet A. Jacobs € George Eliot € Frances E. W. Harper Emily Dickinson € Louisa May Alcott € Sarah Orne Jewett Edith Wharton € Willa Cather € Virginia Woolf € Marianne Moore Katherine Mansfield € Zora Neale Hurston € Lorrie Moore Stevie Smith € Kathleen Raine € Elizabeth Bishop Mary Lavin € Tillie Olsen € Muriel Rukeyser € Maeve Brennan Muriel Spark € Grace Paley € Marie Ponsot € Nadine Gordimer Denise Levertov € Flannery O'Conner € Maya Angelou Cynthia Ozick € Adrienne Rich € Toni Morrison € Alice Munro Edna O'Brien € Mary Oliver € Lucille Clifton € June Jordan Marge Piercy € Sharon Olds € Alice Walker € Leslie Marmon Silko Rita Dove € Sandra Cisneros € Edna St. Vincent Millay