Gill Plain is Professor of English at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Susan Sellers is Professor of English at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

• Introduction Gill Plain and Susan Sellers; Part I. Pioneers and Protofeminism: Introduction Gill Plain; 1. Medieval feminist criticism Carolyn Dinshaw; 2. Feminist criticism in the Renaissance and seventeenth century Helen Wilcox; 3. Mary Wollstonecraft and her legacy Susan Manly; 4. The feminist criticism of Virginia Woolf Jane Goldman; 5. Simone de Beauvoir and the demystification of woman Elizabeth Fallaize; Part II. Creating a Feminist Literary Criticism: Introduction Gill Plain and Susan Sellers; 6. Literary representations of women Mary Eagleton; 7. A history of women's writing Helen Carr; 8. Autobiography and personal criticism Linda Anderson; 9. Black feminist criticism Arlene Keizer; 10. Lesbian feminist criticism Caroline Gonda; 11. Men in feminism Calvin Thomas; Part III. Poststructuralism and Beyond: Introduction Gill Plain and Susan Sellers; 12. Feminist criticism and poststructuralism Claire Colebrook; 13. Feminist criticism and psychoanalysis Madelon Sprengnether; 14. French feminist criticism and writing the body Judith Still; 15. Postcolonial feminist criticism Chris Weedon; 16. Feminist criticism and queer theory Heather Love; 17. Feminist criticism and technologies of the body Stacy Gillis; Postscript: flaming feminism? Susan Gubar; Bibliography.

'Written with a consistently lucid and engaging tone, it accomplishes a dual goal in providing a compelling introduction for students of the discipline and putting forward a range of fresh intellectual insights.' Christine Lees, The Times Literary Supplement