Contents Preface Acknowledgments Literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance MARIE DE FRANCE (fl. 1170?

) Bisclavret Ynec JULIAN OF NORWICH (1342ca. 1416) A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich Chapter 3 [The First Revelation] Chapter 4 From Chapter 58 [Jesus as Mother] From Chapter 59 [God the Mother] Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 86 [Conclusion] MARGERY KEMPE (ca. 13731438) From The Book of Margery Kempe Chapter 3 [On Female Celibacy] Chapter 4 [ Her Temptation to Adultery] Chapter 11 [A Settlement with Her Husband] 1 17 18 25 37 38 38 39 40 41 42 43 45 45 46 46 48 50 000 000

From Chapter 18 [A Meeting with Julian] From Chapter 28 [Pilgrimage] Chapter 52 [Charges of Heresy] Chapter 76 [Nursing Her Husband] JULIANA BERNERS (ca. 1388?) From The Book of St. Albans Hunting Terminology Beasts of Venery Beasts of the Chase Note Here the Age of a Hart The Hare The Reward for the Hounds More about the Hare: Why the Hare Voids Its Dung Standing Up, and Makes Pellets of it ANNE ASKEW (15211546)

52 53 54 58 60 60 60 60 61 61 61 62 62 62

The Ballad Which Anne Askew Made and Sang When She Was in 63 Newgate QUEEN ELIZABETH I (15331603) The Doubt of Future Foes [Ah Silly Pugg, Wert Thou So Sore Afraid] On Monsieurs Departure Speech to the Troops at Tilbury ISABELLA WHITNEY (fl. 15671573) 65 65 66 67 67 68

Will and Testament

68

A communication which the author had to London before she 69 made her will The manner of her will and what she left to London and to all 69 those in it at her departing MARY SIDNEY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE (1561 1621) To the Thrice-Sacred Queen Elizabeth Psalm 58 Si Vere Utique AEMILIA LANYER (15691645) From Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum To the Doubtful Reader To the Queens Most Excellent Majesty To the Virtuous Reader Eves Apology in Defense of Women The Description of Cooke-ham MARTHA MOULSWORTH, WIDOW (157716??) The Memorandum of Martha Moulsworth, Widow ELIZABETH CARY (15851639) From The Tragedy of Mariam, the Faire Queene of Jewry From Act 3, Scene 3 [On the Duties of a Wife] From Act 4, Scene 8 [Mariams Fate] MARY WROTH (1587?1651/53) Song (Love what art thou?) 77 78 81 82 82 82 83 84 85 88 92 93 96 96 96 97 101 102

From Pamphilia to Amphilanthus 1 (When nights black mantle could most darkness prove) 8 (Love, leave to urge) 11 (The weary traveler who, tired, sought) 24 (When last I saw thee, I did not thee see) 25 (Like to the Indians, scorched with the sun) 43 (Night, welcome art thou to my mind distressed) 64 (Love like a juggler comes to play his prize) 74 Song (Love, a child, is ever crying) From A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love

103 103 103 103 104 104 105 105 105 106

77 [First of the Corona] (In this strange labyrinth, how shall I 106 turn?) 78 [Second of the Corona] (Is to leave all and take the thread 106 of love) 79 [Third of the Corona] (His flames are joys, his bands, true 107 lovers might) 89 [Thirteenth of the Corona](Free from all fogs but shining fair and clear) 91 Song (Sweet, let me enjoy thy sight) 96 (Late in the forest I did Cupid see) 103 (My muse, now happy, lay thy self to rest) RACHEL SPEGHT (ca. 159716??) A Muzzle for Melastomus 107 108 108 109 109 110

Literature of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

123

ANNE BRADSTREET (ca. 16121672) The Prologue In Honor of That High and Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth of Happy Memory The Author to Her Book To My Dear and Loving Husband A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment In Reference to Her Children, 23 June, 1659 In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet, Who Deceased June 20, 1669, Being Three Years and Seven Months Old For Deliverance from a Fever From Meditations Divine and Moral

144 147 148 152 153 153 154 156

156 157

Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 158 10th, 1666. Copied out of a Loose Paper MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE (1623 1673) The Poetesss Hasty Resolution An Excuse for So Much Writ upon My Verses Female Orations JANE LEAD (16241704) From A Fountain of Gardens [The First Vision] [The Second Vision] KATHERINE PHILIPS (16321664) 160 160 161 161 164 165 165 167 169

Friendships Mystery, to My Dearest Lucasia To Mrs. M.A. at Parting On the Death of My First and Dearest Child, Hector Philips To Sir Amorous La Fool A Married State MARY ROWLANDSON (ca. 16361711) From A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson The Third Remove APHRA BEHN (1640?1689) The Willing Mistress Love Armed The Disappointment On Her Loving Two Equally

170 171 172 173 174 174 175 175 178 180 180 181 184

To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More than 185 Woman Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave LADY MARY CHUDLEIGH (16561710) From The Ladies Defense To the Ladies ANNE KILLIGREW (16601685) Upon the Saying That My Verses Were Made by Another To My Lord Colrane, In Answer to His Complemental Verses Sent Me Under the Name of Cleanor 186 231 231 233 233 234 235

ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA (16611720) A Letter to Daphnis, April 2, 1685 The Introduction The Spleen To the Nightingale The Circuit of Apollo Adam Posed Friendship between Ephelia and Ardelia A Nocturnal Reverie The Apology The Answer [To Popes Impromptu] SARAH KEMBLE KNIGHT (16661727)

236 238 238 240 244 245 247 247 248 249 250 251

From The Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York 251 Tuesday, October the Third Friday, October the Sixth From December the Sixth January the Sixth MARY ASTELL (16661731) Ambition From A Serious Proposal to the Ladies 190 [A Religious Retirement] LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU (16891762) 251 255 259 260 261 262 263 263 266

SaturdayThe Small-Pox Epitaph An Answer to a Love Letter in Verse Epistle from Mrs. Yonge to Her Husband The Reasons that Induced Dr.Swift to Write a Poem Called the Ladys Dressing Room ELIZA HAYWOOD (1693?1756) Fantomina; or, Love in a Maze ANNE INGRAM, VISCOUNTESS IRWIN (ca. 16961764) An Epistle to Mr. Pope MARY LEAPOR (17221746) Miras Will The Epistle of Deborah Dough Strephon to Celia Proserpines Ragout LUCY TERRY (ca. 17241821) Bars Fight MARY ALCOCK (17421798) A Receipt for Writing a Novel ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD (17431825) The Rights of Woman Washing-Day

268 270 270 271 273 276 276 296 296 299 300 301 302 304 305 305 306 307 309 309 310

Epistle to William Wilberforce Esq. on the Rejection of the Bill for 312 Abolishing the Slave Trade, 1791 ABIGAIL ADAMS (17441818) Letters to John Adams [Man Is a Dangerous Creature], November 27, 1775 [Remember the Ladies], March 31, 1776 [Absolute Power over Wives], May 7, 1776 HANNAH MORE (17451833) From The Slave Trade From The Gin Shop; or, A Peep into Prison CHARLOTTE SMITH (17491806) [Pressed by the moon, mute arbitress of tides] Thirty-Eight Written Near a Port on a Dark Evening Written in October Nepenthe 315 316 316 317 319 321 322 324 326 327 327 329 329 330

On Being Cautioned against Walking on an Headland Overlooking 330 the Sea, Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic The Sea View From Beachy Head [Imperial lord of the high southern coast] [An early worshipper at natures shrine] JUDITH SARGENT MURRAY (17511820) 330 331 331 332 336

On the Equality of the Sexes FRANCES BURNEY (17521840) From The Diary and Letters of Madame DArblay Letter from Miss F. Burney to Mrs. Phillips [Authoress of Evelina] [A Mastectomy ] [M. DArblays postscript] PHILLIS WHEATLEY (ca. 17531784) [Letter Sent by the Authors Master to the Publisher] On Being Brought from Africa to America To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth To S. M., A Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works To His Excellency, General Washington To the University of Cambridge, in New England MARY ROBINSON (17581800) Londons Summer Morning January, 1795 To the Poet Coleridge The Poor Singing Dame MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (17591797) From A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Introduction

337 345 346 346 350 357 358 358 359 359 360 361 363 364 364 365 367 368 370 373 373

From Chapter II: The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character 376 Discussed From Chapter XIII: Some Instances of the Folly Which the Ignorance of Women Generates SARAH WENTWORTH MORTON (17591846) The African Chief From Oubi: or the Virtues of Nature HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS (1761?1827) Sonnet to the Moon Sonnet: To the Torrid Zone 388 391 391 393 396 397 397

From On the Bill Which Was Passed in England for Regulating the 398 Slave Trade JOANNA BAILLIE (17621851) A Mother to Her Waking Infant Song: Wood and Married and A London 400 401 402 403

Literature of the Nineteenth Century MARIA EDGEWORTH (17681849) The Grateful Negro DOROTHY WORDSWORTH (17711855) From The Grasmere Journals GrasmereA Fragment Thoughts on My Sick-Bed 434

407 433

447 448 455 457

[When shall I tread your garden path?] JANE AUSTEN (17751817) Love and Freindship FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS (17931835) Casabianca Homes of England Joan of Arc, in Rheims Indian Womans Death-Song REBECCA COX JACKSON (17951871) From Gifts of Power A Dream of Slaughter The Dream of the Cakes The Dream of Washing Quilts MARY SHELLEY (17971851) Introduction to Frankenstein The Mortal Immortal SOJOURNER TRUTH (ca. 17971883) Aint I a Woman? What Time of Night It Is Keeping the Thing Going while Things Are Stirring LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON (L.E.L.) (18021838) Revenge 510 461

459 459

481 482 483 485 487 489 490 490 491 491 493 496 500 509

511 512 513 515

The Little Shroud The Princess Victoria The Factory The Marriage Vow ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (18061861) A True Dream The Cry of the Children Grief To George Sand A Desire To George Sand A Recognition The Runaway Slave at Pilgrims Point Hiram Powers Greek Slave From Sonnets from the Portuguese V (I lift my heavy heart up solemnly) XXII (When our two souls stand up erect and strong) XLIII (How do I love thee? Let me count the ways) From Aurora Leigh Book I [Auroras Parents] [Auroras Journey to England and Education There by Her Fathers Sister] Book II [Romneys Proposal of Marriage to Aurora and Her Refusal] Book V [Auroras Theories of Poetry]

516 517 518 520 521 524 527 531 532 532 533 540 540 540 541 541 542 542 544 547 549

A Curse for a Nation Mother and Poet MARGARET FULLER (18101850) From Woman in the Nineteenth Century [Prejudice against Women] [Muse and Minerva] [The Future of Women] ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL (18101865) The Old Nurses Story FANNY FERN (SARA WILLIS PARTON) (18111872) Mrs. Adolphus Smith Sporting the Blue Stocking Mr. Pipkins Ideas of Family Retrenchment Moral Molasses; or, Too Sweet by Half A Law More Nice Than Just Blackwells Island The Working-Girls of New York HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (18111896) From Uncle Toms Cabin Chapter XXX. The Slave Warehouse The Ministers Housekeeper HARRIET JACOBS (ca. 18131897) From Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

551 555 558 560 560 564 567 572 573 587 588 588 589 591 592 595 600 601 601 609 618 619

Chapter V. The Trials of Girlhood Chapter VI. The Jealous Mistress Chapter XXI. The Loophole of Retreat From Chapter XXIX. Preparations for Escape ELIZABETH CADY STANTON (18151902) From Address to the New York State Legislature, 1860 CHARLOTTE BRONT (18161855) Jane Eyre EMILY BRONT (18181848) [Tell me, tell me, smiling child] [I am the only being whose doom] [Alone I sat; the summer day] F. de Samara to A. G. A. (Light up thy halls! Tis closing day) The Night-Wind [Riches I hold in light esteem] [Aye, there it is! It wakes to-night] A Day Dream R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida (Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee!) [Ah! why, because the dazzling sun] The Prisoner [No coward soul is mine] Stanzas (Often rebuked, yet always back returning)

619 621 625 628 630 630 633 636 959 962 962 963 964 965 966 966 967 969 970 971 973 974

GEORGE ELIOT (18191880) Silly Novels by Lady Novelists The Lifted Veil FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (18201910) From Cassandra [Womens Time] [The Savior of Her Race] FRANCES E. W. HARPER (18251911) Ethiopia The Slave Mother Vashti Aunt Chloes Politics Learning to Read An Appeal to My Country Women HARRIET E. ADAMS WILSON (1828?1863?) From Our Nig [Frados Childhood] EMILY DICKINSON (18301886) 13 [24] (There is a morn by men unseen) 157 [103] (I have a King, who does not speak) 194 [1072] (Title divine, is mine.) 201 [209] (With thee, in the Desert)

975 978 986 1015 1017 1017 1021 1025 1025 1026 1027 1029 1030 1031 1033 1033 1033 1037 1041 1041 1042 1042

205 [211] (Come slowlyEden!) 260 [288] (Im Nobody! Who are you?) 267 [737] (Rearrange a Wifes Affection!) 269 [249] (Wild nightsWild nights!) 307 [271] (A solemn thingit wasI said) 320 [258] (Theres a certain Slant of light) 325 [322] (There came a Dayat Summers full) 336 [327] (Before I got my eye put out) 340 [280] (I felt a Funeral, in my Brain) 353 [508] (Im cededIve stopped being Theirs) 360 [512] (The soul has Bandaged moments) 372 [341] (After great pain, a formal feeling comes) 382 [425] (Good MorningMidnight) 401 [365] (Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?) 407 [670] (One need not be a Chamberto be Haunted) 409 [303] (The Soul selects her own Society) 411 [528] (Mineby right of the White Election!) 439 [579] (I had been hungry, all the Years) 445 [613] (They shut me up in Prose) 455 [454] (It was given to me by the Gods) 458 [479] (She dealt her pretty words like Blades) 466 [657] (I dwell in Possibility) 1051

1042 1043 1043 1044 1044 1045 1045 1046 1047 1047 1048 1049 1049 1049 1050

1051 1051 1052 1052 1053 1053

479 [712] (Because I could not stop for Death) 517 [601] (A stillVolcanoLife) 519 [441] (This is my letter to the World) 533 [569] (I reckonWhen I count at all) 559 [392] (Through the Dark Sodas Education) 590 [669] (No Romance sold unto) 591 [465] (I heard a Fly buzzwhen I died) 600 [312] (Herlast Poems) 620 [435] (Much Madness is divinest Sense) 627 [593] (I wish I was enchanted) 649 [384] (No Rack can torture me) 656 [520] (I started EarlyTook my Dog) 675 [401] (What SoftCherubic Creatures) 697 [462] (Why make it doubtit hurts it so) 709 [642] (Me from Myselfto banish) 745 [722] (Sweet MountainsYe tell Me no lie) 764 [754] (My Life had stooda Loaded Gun) 788 [709] (Publicationis the Auction) 857 [732] (She rose to His Requirementdropt) 1061 [858] (This Chasm, Sweet, opon my life) 1072 [959] (A loss of something ever felt I) 1096 [986] (A narrow Fellow in the Grass)

1054 1054 1055 1055 1056 1056 1056 1057 1057 1058 1059 1059 1060 1060 1061 1061 1061 1062 1063 1063 1064 1064

1163 [1138] (A Spider sewed at Night) 1263 [1129] (Tell all the truth but tell it slant) 1311 [1282] (Art thou the thing I wanted?) 1332 [1317] (Abraham to kill him) 1470 [1445] (Death is the supple Suitor) 1602 [1502] (Her Losses make our Gains ashamed.) 1691 [1705] (Volcanoes be in Sicily) 1715 [1651] (A word made Flesh is seldom) 1734 [1657] (Eden is that old fashioned House) 1742 [1670] (In Winter in my Room) 1773 [1732] (My life closed twice before its close) Letters 233 [Daisy and Her Master] 248 [Daisy Kneels a Culprit] 260 [Say If My Verse Is Alive?] 261 [My Companions] 265 [Fame] 268 [My Business Is Circumference] CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (18301894) Song (When I am dead, my dearest) Symbols After Death

1065 1065 1066 1066 1067 1067 1067 1068 1068 1068 1069 1070 1070 1071 1072 1073 1074 1075 1076 1079 1079 1080

A Soul The World Dead before Death Cobwebs Shut Out A Triad A Birthday Winter: My Secret Up-hill The Convent Threshold Goblin Market In an Artists Studio Eve Enrica, 1865 Venuss Looking-Glass REBECCA HARDING DAVIS (18311910) Life in the Iron-Mills LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (18321888) My Mysterious Mademoiselle How I Went Out to Service ADAH ISAACS MENKEN (18351868) Judith

1080 1081 1081 1082 1082 1083 1083 1084 1085 1085 1089 1100 1101 1103 1103 1104 1105 1131 1133 1141 1151 1152

Myself

1154

Turn-of-the-Century Literature SARAH MORGAN BRYAN PIATT (18361919) The Palace-Burner The Sorrows of Charlotte Engaged Too Long The Witch in the Glass The Christening The Coming of Eve A New Thanksgiving AUGUSTA WEBSTER (18371894) Circe A Castaway From Mother and Daughter CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON (18401894) Miss Grief MICHAEL FIELD (KATHERINE BRADLEY [18461914] AND EDITH COOPER [18621913]) [Atthis, my darling] [Maids, not to you my mind doth change] [Come Gorgo, put the rug in place]

1157 1179 1179 1181 1181 1181 1182 1182 1184 1184 1185 1190 1204 1205 1206 1221 1222 1222 1223

A Pen-Drawing of Leda [A girl] Unbosoming [It was deep April] To Christina Rossetti Eros [Lo, my loved is dying] ALICE MEYNELL (18471922) The Sunderland Children Parentage A Father of Women: Ad Sororem E. B. ALICE JAMES (18481892) From The Diary [My First Journal!] (May 31st, 1889) [My Microscopic Field] (July 12th [1889]) [Pharasaism; Death] (February 17th [1890]) [My Hidden Self] (October 26th [1890]) [Going Downhill] (May 31st [1891]) [This Long Slow Dying] (February 2nd [1892]) [Physical Pain] (March 4th [1892]) Final Entry by Katharine P. Loring EMMA LAZARUS (18491887)

1224 1224 1225 1225 1226 1226 1227 1227 1228 1229 1229 1230 1231 1231 1231 1232 1234 1235 1235 1236 1237 1237

In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport 1492 The New Ezekiel The New Colossus Venus of the Louvre SARAH ORNE JEWETT (18491909) The Town Poor KATE CHOPIN (18501904) The Awakening MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN (18521930) The Revolt of Mother OLIVE SCHREINER (18551920) From Woman and Labor [Sex-parasitism] ANNA JULIA COOPER (1858?1964) Womanhood: A Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race PAULINE HOPKINS (18591930) Talma Gordon CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN (18601935) She Walketh Veiled and Sleeping False Play

1238 1239 1240 1240 1241 1242 1243 1251 1253 1344 1346 1357 1358 1358 1361 1362 1377 1378 1388 1390 1390

The Mothers Charge The Yellow Wallpaper Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper? AMY LEVY (18611889) Magdalen Epitaph (On s commonplace person who died in bed) In the Mile-End Road Ballade of an Omnibus MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE (18611907) A Clever Woman The Other Side of a Mirror Regina The Devils Funeral The Witch Doubt The White Women Marriage E. PAULINE JOHNSON (TEKAHIONWAKE [18611913]) A Red Girls Reasoning The Song My Paddle Sings Selected Bibliographies Index

1391 1392 1403 1404 1405 1407 1407 1408 1409 1409 1410 1411 1411 1412 1413 1413 1414 1414 1415 1427 000 000