About the editors: Virginia Blain is a professor of English at Macquarie University in Australia. Blain has written extensively, especially about women writers through the ages. Source: www.mq.edu.au. Isobel Grundy specializes in English women's literature and has written extensively in the area of women's literature. Source: www.ualbertacentennial.ca. Dr. Patricia Clements received her education at the Universities of Alberta and Toronto and went on to Oxford University where she pursued doctoral studies on modern English and French literature. She returned to the University of Alberta to teach and was the first women to be appointed Dean of the Faculty of Arts there. Source: www.ualbertacentennial.ca. About the book: quoting from the book's introduction, "First, to the shape of the book. It includes women writing from the beginning to the present (though not women writing wholly or mainly since 1985); not only English women, but women writing in English in several national traditions, including African, American, Asian, Australian, Canadian, Caribbean, New Zealand, South Pacific [and] the British Isles. . .The women included are grouped by date. . .Another list. . .gives cross-references from their other names (many changed their name on marriage, some repeatedly: some sought the shelter of pseudonyms." This work also contains an index of topics and a list of works frequently cited.