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.