Women and Literature in Britain, 1700-1800 is unique in providing an authoritative, up-to-date overview of eighteenth-century women's writing and its contexts. The contributors are well-known feminist literary critics, cultural historians and historians of publishing. They discuss the construction of women, and women's writing across a wide range of genres, including essays on ideas of femininity, women and race, changing family structures, women and the law, and women as publishers and as readers. This book will be an invaluable resource both for students and experts in the field.