British literary history teems with accomplished women writers, boasting the likes of Jane Austen and George Eliot, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Maria Edgeworth and Fanny Burney, Mary Wollstonecraft and Annie Besant, Fay Weldon and Iris Murdoch, Margaret Drabble and A.S. Byatt, and so on. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers provides in a single volume an accessible and stimulating guide to over four hundred British women writers, ranging from medieval mystics such as Julian of Norwich to modern novelists such as Anita Brookner and Edna O'Brien.Shattock includes novelists, poets, and playwrights, together with mystics, diarists, travel writers, scientists--even mystery writers such as Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and P.D. James. A number of non-British writers who have influenced British literature also appear, including Anne Bradstreet, Sylvia Plath, Nadine Gordimer, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Doris Lessing, and Katherine Mansfield. Arranged alphabetically, the entries provide a brief outline of each woman's life, her major publications, contemporary critical reception, and an evaluation of significant features of her work, together with suggestions for further reading. In addition, the Guide features subject entries and provides an extensive general bibliography on women's writing.Concise, informative and well-organized, The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers will be an invaluable handbook for everyone interested in women's writing.