Elaine Showalter

"Authorship of the Battle Hymn of the Republic made [19th-century aspiring poet and playwright Julia Ward Lowe] celebrated and revered. But Julia was also continuing to fight a civil war at home; she became a pacifist, suffragist, and world traveler. She came into her own as a tireless campaigner for women's rights and social reform ... Elaine Showalter tells the story of Howe's determined self-creation and brings to life the society she inhabited...

" ... Exploration of the extraordinary parallels between the ends of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and their representations in literature, art, and film"--Jacket, page [2].

"In one of her most ambitious works, Joyce Carol Oates reimagines the inner, poetic, and spiritual life of Norma Jean Baker - the child, the woman, the fated celebrity - in Norma Jeane's own voice. This most intimate portrait reveals a fragile, indiosyncratically gifted young woman who makes and remakes her identity, ever managing to survive against crushing odds to become the definition of stardom ... Blonde is a sweeping novel about the elusive...

For generations, children around the world have come of age with Louisa May Alcott's March girls: hardworking eldest sister Meg, headstrong, impulsive Jo, timid Beth, and precocious Amy. With their father away at war, and their loving mother Marmee working to support the family, the four sisters have to rely on one another for support as they endure the hardships of wartime and poverty. We witness the sisters growing up and figuring out what role...

Joyce Carol Oates's Wonderland Quartet comprises four remarkable novels that explore social class in America and the inner lives of young Americans. In Expensive People, Oates takes a provocative and suspenseful look at the roiling secrets of America's affluent suburbs. Set in the late 1960s, this first-person confession is narrated by Richard Everett, a precocious and obese boy who sees himself as a minor character in the alarming drama unfolding...