Who would you say are the most influential female writers/ characters from 1700-present?
Who would you say are the most influential female writers/ characters from 1700-present?
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Jane Austin is the first who comes into my mind ❤️
I’m a guy so maybe not the best judge ? but maybe Atwood ?
George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, Flannery O’Connor, Eurora Welty, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Sexton, Isabel Allende, Kamila Shamsie, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Marguerite Duras, Arundhati Roy, Renata Adler, Nadine Gordimer, Celine, Marianne Fritz, Anne Enright, Alice Walker.
I would add Sylvia Plath, Alice Munro, and Dorothy Parker too.
@Valerie I’d agree with Alice Munro, but I’m not much of a Plath or Parker fan.
@Valerie If we want another Canadian author, Margaret Laurence deserves to be better known.
@Don Ah, I’m a Plath and Parker fan. I think even if you’re not a fan of theirs, you really can’t deny their influence. Speaking for me personally, I’m not a big Munro fan but she is one of the most influential Canadian writers of her generation. Oh and I would also put Elizabeth Strout on this list too.
@Valerie I’d put Elizabeth Bowen on it. For “confessional poetry” I prefer Anne Sexton or Sharon Olds.
Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom’s Cabin had a strong antislavery message.
Let’s include Alice Munro, Maya Angelou, and Joyce Carol Oates.
Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Irène Némirovsky, A. S. Byatt
And Iris Murdock
And we mustn’t forget J. K. Rowling?
Mary Wollstonecraft’s A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN (1792); Jane Austen’s EMMA (1815); Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN (1818); Charlotte Bronte’s JANE EYRE (1847); Emily Bronte’s WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1848);
Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN (1868); Emily Dickinson’s Poems (1870s); George Eliot’s MIDDLEMARCH (1871); Virginia Woolf’s A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN (1929); Sylvia Plath: “The Colossus” and Other Poems and THE BELL JAR (1960); JK Rowling: HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE (1995).
I know this is limited, but this list includes the women I know should be there. Would someone help me fill in the blanks of the names of famous literary female authors?
I have not listed female characters because they all originate through each author’s imagination.
Two of my favorite female characters are Celie from THE COLOR PURPLE and Nurse Ratched from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST.
A Vindication of the Rights of Women is a “must read” for anyone interested in the classics and women writers. Good choice for this list!
She’s not read much in the US, but Elizabeth Gaskell, who was a contemporary of Dickens (and often published her work in his magazines) was nearly as popular as Dickens in her day. Her work is still very popular in England; a number of her novels have been adapted for tv by the BBC.
Have you read one of Gaskell’s novels that you especially liked?
@John North and South and Cranfield. There’s also a novella about a young doctor whose title escapes me at the moment. It’s quite funny.
@Lynne if you remember the novella’s title, let me know: would you please?
@John It’s Mr. Harrison’s Confessions. And it should be Cranford, not Cranfield.
Agatha Christie, JK Rowling, Anne Perry, etc.
Shannon Lanier I read somewhere that Agatha Christie’s books are the 3rd best selling in the English language (after Shakespeare and the Bible, so she’s in good company).
George Eliot (aka Marian Evans).
Ursula K. Le Guin. One of the first sci fi/fantasy writers to write from a female point of view. Also Octavia Butler.
Yes agree. I love both of these wonderful writers
Alice walker, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Margret Atwood , Emily Dickinson , Sylvia Plath , Louisa May Alcott, Maya Angelou , Joyce Carol Oates
Good ones are all listed here.
Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Bronte sisters.
Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Phyllis Wheatley, Anna Sewell, Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Beatrix Potter, JK Rowling
Louise Erdrich, Connie May Fowler, Edith Wharton, Carson McCullers, Bronte sisters.
Louise Erdrich is brilliant!
@Rebecca I agree, read all her novels more than once! Yaaaay to another Erdrich fan. ?
She owns an independent bookstore in Minneapolis, Minnesota called Birchbark Books. I hope to go there someday!
@Rebecca yes I get the newsletter and would love to visit there too.
It would be interesting to note how many of these early female novelists published under masculine pseudonyms or otherwise disguised their names. Here’s my short list, until I think of more:
Jane Austen (published anonymously as A Lady)
The Bronte sisters (published under pseudonyms Cutter, Acton and Ennis Bell during their lifetimes)
George Eliot (real name Marianne Evans)
George Sand (really long French name)
S.E. Hinton and J.K. Rowlings (modern YA authors who used their initials so that boys would read their books)
Pearl S. Buck ( I predict that Louis Erdrich’s books will become “Classics” in the future!)