Literary Ladies Guide

This roundup of intriguing personal essays celebrates Jane Austen’s life and legacy, and the unique place she holds  in literary history.

In 2025, the year of Jane Austen‘s 250th birthday, her influence and talent have been recognized far and wide. Unusually for a woman of her time (she was born in 1775) her talent was recognized early on and taken seriously by her entire family.

Despite the popular portrayal of her as all charm and modesty, Jane was a writer and observer in full mastery of her gifts. She cared deeply about getting published and being read, despite myths to the contrary. Six exquisite novels crafted with compassion, humor, and insight into the travails of the sexes and social classes assured her lofty position in literary history.

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In 1838, Sarah and Angelina Grimké were likely the best-known — and most hated — women in the United States. Both published extensively, including essays and pamphlets promoting abolition and women’s rights.

Arm in Arm: The Grimké Sisters’ Fight for Abolition and Women’s Rights by Angelica Shirley Carpenter (Zest Books, 2025), introduces these fascinating figures to middle grade through high school readers, but can be enjoyed by all ages.

Sarah Grimké (1792 – 1873), the more reserved sister, preferred writing, while Angelina Grimké (1805 – 1879) loved the spotlight. Her spirited speeches often left audiences in tears. Read More→

Presented here is a collection of documentaries and biopics exploring the lives of iconic women poets: Maya Angelou, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Julia de Burgos, Emily Dickinson, Ingrid Jonker, and Sylvia Plath. 

On the surface, it wouldn’t seem like a full-length film about a poet would be anything to write home about, so to speak. But behind their deep, soulful lines were complex lives, not always spent at a desk. 

Best of all, most of the films in this roundup can be viewed gratis on YouTube by following the links provided. Read More→

The latest biography from historian Judith Lissauer Cromwell, Louise-Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun: Portrait of an Artist, 1755–1842 (McFarland, 2025), follows the remarkable life of this painter whose portraits of European royalty and nobility hang in many of the world’s most important museums.

As a young woman in the male-dominated society of 18th-century France, Louise-Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun was denied an artistic education and forced to nurture her passion outside of conventional schooling. Vigée Le Brun’s vibrant art, in addition to her charm and beauty, caught the attention of Queen Marie-Antoinette, who honored her as her chosen painter.

At the pinnacle of her fame and fortune, however, the Revolution forced Vigée Le Brun to flee, leaving everything behind except her only child, a daughter. Read More→

Johanna Spyri and Frances Hodgson Burnett illustrate the effects of nature on well-being through the symbolism and imagery of nature in their novels, Heidi and The Secret Garden. In both of these beloved classic novels, the authors show how the characters’ interactions with nature sets them on transformative journeys that help heal physical ailments and mental distress.

Spyri’s Heidi (1881) follows a young girl who has lost her parents and is taken to the Swiss Alps to stay with her grandfather. Mary Bernath, literature professor at Bloomsburg State University, writes that “Heidi’s home in the Alps is an idyllic place, far from the modern world and its concerns.”

After a short time, she is sent to the city of Frankfurt to be a companion to Klara, a slightly older girl who is unable to walk. While in Frankfurt, Heidi falls ill and yearns to return to the natural world of the Alps. Read More→

Despite the challenges and pressures that Palestinian women writers have historically faced from displacement, occupation, and societal pressures, prominent writers have emerged steady and strong, whether in Palestine or exiled in the diaspora. Poet Fadwa Tuqan (1917 – 2003) was one of these women. 

Palestinian women writers, like other women writers across the globe, did not have it easy, especially those who lived through the Nakba. This was the 1948 catastrophe when more than 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from historical Palestine (modern day Israel) to Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

Added to this displacement were societal pressure and cultural norms that put women at a disadvantage compared to their male peers. Read More→

Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, 1931 – 2019) is celebrated for her groundbreaking novels and nonfiction that examine the Black experience in America.

Her writings have reached millions of readers, and she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 for the “visionary force and poetic import” of her work. [above right, Toni Morrison’s author photo on The Bluest Eye, 1970; photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]

Following is an overview of her career as an editor and publisher, which isn’t as widely known despite being hugely influential in the contemporary realm of Black literature and the publishing world. Read More→

This article is reprinted with permission from Feminism for All. Women were oppressed in patriarchal civilizations the world over. And women the world refused those systems and structures. Women the world over rose up in rebellion against their oppression.

They chaffed against the private domestic sphere before leaving it. They found ways to acquire knowledge that was forbidden to their sex and gender. They defied the odds to take ruling power from men, or ruled alongside and equal to their husbands. (Shown above right, Pandita Ramabai.)

During the colonial/imperialist era, they joined and were welcomed into anti-colonialist movements. Later, they came to together and forged feminist movements to throw off the shackles of domination and oppression that tried to contain and silence them. Read More→