Eve Bites Back: An Alternative History of English Literature

Anna Beer investigates the lives and achievements of eight women writers, uncovering a startling and unconventional history of literature

Warned not to write—and certainly not to bite—these women put pen to paper anyway and wrote themselves into history.

From the fourteenth century through to the present day, women who write have been understood as mad, undisciplined, or dangerous. Female writers have always had to find ways to overcome or challenge these beliefs. Some were cautious and discreet, some didn’t give a damn, but all lived complex, eventful, and often controversial lives.

Eve Bites Back places the female contemporaries of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton center stage in the history of literature in English, uncovering stories of dangerous liaisons and daring adventures. From Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Aemilia Lanyer and Anne Bradstreet, to Aphra Behn, Mary Wortley Montagu, Jane Austen and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, these are the women who dared to write.