"Willa Cather, Kate Chopin, Carson McCullers, Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O'Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, Gertrude Stein, Anne Tyler, Eudora Welty, and Edith Wharton are among the most distinguished writers of modern fiction that this country has produced. Their insights into the various roles of women have altered accepted notions of gender in American literature. Often using the intimate territory of family and home as the backdrop of their fiction, these widely read and widely taught authors have also redefined our literary perceptions of plot and character. Modern Women Writers, part of the Essential Bibliography of American Fiction series, introduces the serious reader and student to each representative author's body of work and to those sources written about her work that illuminate her writing and her life. The book includes a foreword by Mary Ann Wimsatt, McClintock Professor of Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina, that comments on these writers and discusses their collective influence on American fiction." "Based on Facts On File's four-volume Bibliography of American Fiction series, each volume in this concise series profiles between six and ten authors selected according to their backgrounds and writings. The forewords written by experts in literature offer readers a fuller understanding of the authors as a group and place their writings in a larger context." "Entries are arranged alphabetically by author and begin with a complete primary bibliography of the author's books in all genres: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama. The secondary bibliography, intended to enhance the reader's understanding of an author and his works, lists major biographical and critical books and articles. A list of archives locating the principal holdings of an author's manuscripts and private papers completes each entry." "Modern Women Writers is the first resource for anyone who seeks to expand his or her knowledge about the most widely read women authors of our time. Whether the reader wants to discover other works by a favorite author or wants to explore the body of criticism that the works have inspired, this volume provides a reliable road map for the literary journey."--BOOK JACKET.