By combining historical spread with a thematic structure, this volume explores the ways in which gender has shaped literary output and addresses the changing situations in which women lived and wrote. It places the work of established writers such as Margaret Oliphant, Naomi Mitchison and A.L. Kennedy in new contexts and discusses the writing of critically neglected figures such as Sileas na Ceapaich, Mary Queen of Scots, Anne Grant, Janet Hamilton, Isabella Bird, F.Marion McNeill and Denise Mina.