Norton Anthology of Literature by Women

Literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Julian of Norwich (1342 – c. 1416)

Margery Kempe (c. 1372 – 1438)

Juliana Berners (born c. 1388)

Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603)

Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1562–1621)

Isabella Whitney (fl. 1567–1573)

Aemilia Lanyer (1569–1645)

Elizabeth Cary (1585–1639)

Mary Wroth (c. 1587 – 1651/53)

Literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672)

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623–1673)

Jane Lead (1624–1704)

Katherine Philips (1632–1664)

Mary Rowlandson (c. 1636 – 1711)

Aphra Behn (1640–1689)

Lady Mary Chudleigh (1656–1710)

Anne Killigrew (1660–1685)

Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661–1720)

Delarivier Manley (c. 1663 – 1724)

Mary Astell (1666–1731)

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762)

Eliza Haywood (c. 1693 – 1756)

Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743–1825)

Abigail Adams (1744–1818)

Charlotte Turner Smith (1749–1806)

Frances Burney (1752–1840)

Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753 – 1784)

Mary Robinson (1748–1800)

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)

Helen Maria Williams (c. 1762 – 1827)

Literature of the nineteenth century

Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849)

Dorothy Wordsworth (1771–1855)

Jane Austen (1773–1817)

Rebecca Cox Jackson (1795–1871)

Mary Shelley (1797–1851)

Sojourner Truth (c. 1797 – 1883)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850)

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810–1865)

Fanny Fern (Sara Willis Parton) (1811–1872)

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)

Harriet Jacobs (c. 1813 – 1897)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)

Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855)

Emily Brontë (1818–1848)

George Eliot (1819–1880)

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910)

Frances E. W. Harper (1825–1911)

Harriet E. Adams Wilson (c. 1828 – c. 1870)

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)

Rebecca Harding Davis (1831–1910)

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888)

Turn-of-the-century literature

Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894)

Alice Meynell (1847–1922)

Alice James (1848–1892)

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909)

Kate Chopin (1850–1904)

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930)

Lady Augusta Gregory (1852–1932)

Olive Schreiner (1855–1920)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861–1907)

Edith Wharton (1862–1937)

May Sinclair (1863–1946)

Mary Austin (1868–1934)

Charlotte Mew (1869–1928)

Henry Handel Richardson (1870–1946)

Early twentieth-century literature

Willa Cather (1873–1947)

Dorothy Richardson (1873–1957)

Amy Lowell (1874–1925)

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)

Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875–1935)

Anna Hempstead Branch (1875–1937)

Gertrude Bonnin (Zitkala Sa) (1876–1938)

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)

Susan Glaspell (1882–1948)

Mina Loy (1882–1966)

Anna Spencer (1882–1975)

Katherine Susannah Prichard (1882–1969)

Anzia Yezierska (c. 1883 – 1970)

Anna Wickham (1884–1947)

Elinor Wylie (1885–1928)

Isak Dinesen (1885–1962)

Radclyffe Hall (1886–1943)

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886–1961)

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)

Marianne Moore (1887–1972)

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923)

Katherine Anne Porter (c. 1890 – 1980)

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)

Djuna Barnes (1892–1982)

Rebecca West (1892–1983)

Dorothy Parker (1892–1967)

Jean Rhys (c. 1894 – 1979)

Louise Bogan (1897–1970)

Ruth Pitter (1897–1992)

Marita Bonner (1899–1971)

Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)

Meridel Le Sueur (1900–1996)

Later twentieth-century literature

Stevie Smith (1902–1972)

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977)

Dilys Laing (1906–1960)

M. F. K. Fisher (1908–1992)

Dorothy Livesay (1909–1996)

Eudora Welty (1909–2001)

Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)

Mary Lavin (1912–1989)

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)

May Sarton (1912–1995)

Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)

Tillie Olsen (1912–2007)

Ruth Stone (1915–2011)

Margaret Walker (1915–1998)

Judith Wright (born 1915)

Carson McCullers (1917–1967)

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000)

Muriel Spark (born 1918)

Doris Lessing (born 1919)

May Swenson (1919–1989)

Gwen Harwood (born 1920)

Hisaye Yamamoto (born 1921)

Grace Paley (1922–2007)

Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014)

Denise Levertov (1923–1997)

Patricia Beer (1919–1999)

Flannery O'Conner (1925–1964)

Carolyn Kizer (1925–2014)

Maxine W. Kumin (born 1925)

Margaret Laurence (1926–1987)

Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

Maya Angelou (1928–2014)

Cynthia Ozick (born 1928)

Ursula Fanthorpe (1929–2009)

Ursula K. Le Guin (born 1929)

Paule Marshall (born 1929)

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012)

Toni Morrison (born 1931)

Alice Munro (born 1931)

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)

Edna O'Brien (born 1932)

Fleur Adcock (born 1934)

Kamala Das (1934–2009)

Audre Lorde (1934–1992)

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010)

Bessie Head (1937–1986)

Diane Wakoski (born 1937)

Caryl Churchill (born 1938)

Joyce Carol Oates (born 1938)

Margaret Atwood (born 1939)

Angela Carter (1940–1992)

Maxine Hong Kingston (born 1940)

Bobbie Ann Mason (born 1940)

Bharati Mukherjee (born 1940)

Ama Ata Aidoo (born 1942)

Gloria Anzaldúa (1942–2004)

Marilyn Hacker (born 1942)

Sharon Olds (born 1942)

Louise Glück (born 1943)

Eaven Boland (born 1944)

Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017)

Alice Walker (born 1944)

Annie Dillard (born 1945)

Linda Hogan (born 1947)

Leslie Marmon Silko (born 1948)

Jamaica Kincaid (born 1949)

Jorie Graham (born 1951)

Rita Dove (born 1952)

Luci Tapahonso (born 1953)

Lorna Dee Cervantes (born 1954)

Louise Erdrich (born 1954)

Cathy Song (born 1955)

Rebecca Brown (born 1956)

The upcoming third edition

Norton released the third edition of the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women in February 2007, expanding the new edition into a two-volume set along with a companion reader. Additional material added sixty-one additional authors to the anthology, bringing the total to 219. The additional material expanded on the interest in current women's literature scholarship in the effects of diverse backgrounds on women's experiences.