Before Mary Wollstonecraft, women had no particular voice in European literary society. However, in the Age of Reason, many women hosted literary salons. The most famous salon during the Enlightenment was hosted by Louise Florence d'Épinay, who later went on to publish several writings of personal and morally-instructive nature. Germaine de Staël hosted an international salon in Switzerland after fleeing the French Revolution. She produced De la littérature (1800) and Germany (1810), both of which spread the theories of Romanticism. In one particular chapter of De la littérature, Madame de Staël strongly advocated women's literature; however, it was not this that delivered her literary attention. In 1802 before being exiled from Paris, Madame de Staël published her first novel, Delphine, which was condemned by Napoleon. After writing Corinne, ou l'Italie (1807), she was exiled from France a second time. This was her most popular novel, which influenced women's literary pursuits in Europe and America. In 1812, Napoleon confiscated Madame de Staël's De L'Allemagne in an attempt to silence her. This proved that the world of men would not willingly acknowledge women's freedom in literature.

Women's Gothic fiction got a push in the 1790's, when Ann Radcliffe contributed to the development of the Gothic novel with The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797). At one point in time, she was the most famous novelist in England (Microsoft Encarta). Two other women Gothic novelists are Clara Reeve and Charlotte Smith, who were both key figures in the Gothic Novel genre. However, Radcliffe's thick, impossible plots were something to be made fun of, as was demonstrated in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1818).

Jane Austen was the next key player in Women's Romantic literature with her publication of Sense and Sensibility in 1811. She was well-known for her witty reflections of British middle and upper-class society. She blended satire, romance, and psychological insight in her writing. Because of her ability to write cleverly and her motif of characters changing for the better, she is now regarded as one of the best novelists of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1813, she published Pride and Prejudice, and in the following year, Mansfield Park. Both works guaranteed her immediate success in the literary world. Before Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth carried out the tradition of pointing out society's failings. Her novel, The Absentee (1812), describes the horrible effects of absentee landlords. Another woman who wrote of social disparities was Scottish writer Susan Ferrier, who helped develop the prose tradition in Scottish literature.

As proof that women could write better than, if not as well as men, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein in 1818 after being challenged to a ghost-story writing contest by Lord Byron and her husband, Percy Shelley. The novel was the first to convey the plot of "creation destroying, or succeeding the creator." Victor Frankenstein, once overjoyed with the thought of giving life, suddenly experiences fear and dread in his creation: "Mingled with this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid; the overthrow so complete" (Shelley 57)! Consequently, unable to meet the creature's demands, Victor Frankenstein is murdered by the very thing that he gave life. The novel was widely acclaimed both critically and popularly, and gained long-lasting success. More than a century later, it inspired a major motion picture. The novel was followed by Valperga in 1823. In 1826, Shelley wrote The Last Man to describe her grief of her husband's death. The novel was followed by Lodore (1835) and Faulkner (1837). Afterwards, she shut herself away from the literary world and spent her time raising her son and securing his right to the Shelley title before she died in 1851.

Women's Romantic poetry also received high praise. Major characters of the Romantic movement in poetry include Elizabeth Barret Browning. Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850) is considered by critics to be her best work. Joanna Baillie published Poetic Miscellanies in 1823; however she was more well-known as a playwright. Another major figure in Women's Romantic poetry is Emily Dickinson, who is now known as the greatest American female poet. She wrote her poems very carefully and often mentioned the importance of emotion. However, her poems were not known to the world until 1896.

In 1846, the "Bells," otherwise known as the Brontë sisters, published Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. In the year of 1847, the Brontë sisters saw eminent fame and high praise with Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. However, by the 1850s, women's Romantic literature was succeeded by the Realism and the deaths of many Romantic writers rendered it impossible to revive the movement. With Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford (1853), Realism sounded the knell of Women's Romanticism.

Sources:

Mussell, Kay. Women's Gothic and Romantic Fiction. London: Greenwood Press, 1981.

"Staël, Germaine de," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

"Épinay, Louise Florence d'," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.