Gail Hamilton: Selected Writings (American Women Writers Series)

This anthology of writings by the controversial nineteenth-century essayist Gail Hamilton (Mary Abigail Dodge) includes samples of her letters, essays, and books, all of which provide insights into her views on women and literary work. Her essays address women's issues such as stereotyping, the use of language, women's education, careers for women, and the impact of social and economic circumstances on personal lives. Her arguments will intrigue today's readers; in her own time, both suffragists and antisuffragists claimed her as their own.


Hamilton's work also examines such literary issues as the difficulties and rewards of authorship for women, sexist literary criticism, and publishers' abuse of writers. Her advice to writers remains sound today, though it shocked many of her contemporaries. Susan Coultrap-McQuin has written an informative introduction to Hamilton's life and career, her literary works, and their cultural context, and has extensively annotated the texts.