Seneca Falls, 1848, marked the intellectual start of the women's movement, and empowered women to write of their experiences and hopes. By the end of the nineteenth century, two-thirds of the books published in the U.S. were written by women. So why don't most literature courses reflect that coverage? Is it partly because of attitudes of male authors, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, who complained about the "damned mob of scribbling women" taking away readers that were rightfully his? These books attempt to correct this underbalance of women writers during a surprisingly active period in American letters. Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers contains entries for 77 writers whose inclusion was determined by the fact that their best-known works were published during the nineteenth century. Some are well known, while others are less familiar to modern readers. Many of the better-known authors, such as Louisa May Alcott and Emily Dickinson, are studied in high school and college. Designed as a primary reference guide for researchers, the book includes fiction writers, poets, autobiographers, essayists, and abolitionists. The editor, an associate professor of English, chose women whose writing aids "in illuminating the social, historical, cultural, and economic climate of the nineteenth century." She also tried for ethnic balance, although there are only a few African Americans and one Native American included. Entries follow the same format: a biography containing information on the writer's personal history, two critical sections ("Major Works and Themes" and "Critical Reception"), and a bibliography of works by and about the subject. The biography is often a birth-to-death chronology, with most discussion of writings coming in the critical sections. "Major Works and Themes" looks at the subject's body of work as a whole and notes themes that pervaded it. "Critical Reception" chronicles how the writer was perceived in her lifetime and often quotes reviews or analyses of her work from then and now. Many of the articles include a listing of works cited. The book includes a comprehensive bibliography of resources for further study and an extensive index. The length of an entry varies from 3 to 12 pages, with the majority between 5 and 7 pages long. The length is determined by how well known and prolific the writer is, but also depends on the writing style of the contributors, most of whom are academicians. Because the pieces are written by many different people, the writing styles are uneven. One Hundred Years of American Women Writing, a volume in the Magill Bibliographies series, focuses on 66 late-nineteenth-century authors, early-twentieth-century writers, poets, dramatists, experimental writers, intellectuals, reformers and journalists, and African American and other minority writers. It should be noted that, while there is a chapter devoted to African American writers, others are grouped in the chapter "Ethnic Women Writing." Writers were selected because they were well known in their time, published book-length works, and have undergone major critical reevaluation. They are arranged in six thematic chapters, each beginning with a general essay, followed by an annotated list of related general books and articles, then concentrating on specific authors and critical works about them. Author entries, which are typically two to three pages long, provide brief biographical information followed by selected lists of reissued editions of the authors' writings, and well-annotated lists of biographical and critical works. Emphasis is put on distinguished and critically insightful biographies rather than popular treatments. Familiar authors, such as Kate Chopin and Dorothy Parker, are featured, as are the less well known, such as Susan Warner (author of the first U.S. best-seller) and Gertrude Atherton. One appendix provides a chronology of women writers; the other lists writers by ethnicity. A general index follows. There is some