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Twelve Stories by American Women
A collection of twelve essential short stories by iconic American women writers that introduces a more diverse canon and emphasizes non-white and queer writers to better represent the experiences of all American women and to understand the importance of the short story for women
When Four Stories by American Women was first published by Penguin Classics in 1990, it understandably reflected the second-wave feminist interpretations of that time—a period marked by an impressive recovery of what were then considered to be minor American writers. Since then, the four white women writers included in the volume—Rebecca Harding Davis, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Edith Wharton—have become canonical figures, and scholars have grown to see their work as only a small part of the rich tapestry of American women’s lives, values, and political beliefs in the fertile period of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century American literature. Today, we not only have a deeper understanding of the significance of these texts and the complicated nature of their authors’ ideological orientations, scholars and educators have also expanded the canon of American women writers to more frequently foreground the voices of non-white and queer writers whose work speaks more fully to the experiences and beliefs of all American women.
This updated and expanded volume, Twelve Stories by American Women edited by Arielle Zibrak, offers a more diverse selection of writers--including Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, María Cristina Mena, Zitkala-Ša, Sui Sin Far, and Barbara E. Pope--; covers hot-button issues such as environmentalism, queerness, and marital status; and provides a new introduction that highlights the developments in the critical understanding of turn-of-the-century American women writers in all of their complexity.
When Four Stories by American Women was first published by Penguin Classics in 1990, it understandably reflected the second-wave feminist interpretations of that time—a period marked by an impressive recovery of what were then considered to be minor American writers. Since then, the four white women writers included in the volume—Rebecca Harding Davis, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Edith Wharton—have become canonical figures, and scholars have grown to see their work as only a small part of the rich tapestry of American women’s lives, values, and political beliefs in the fertile period of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century American literature. Today, we not only have a deeper understanding of the significance of these texts and the complicated nature of their authors’ ideological orientations, scholars and educators have also expanded the canon of American women writers to more frequently foreground the voices of non-white and queer writers whose work speaks more fully to the experiences and beliefs of all American women.
This updated and expanded volume, Twelve Stories by American Women edited by Arielle Zibrak, offers a more diverse selection of writers--including Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, María Cristina Mena, Zitkala-Ša, Sui Sin Far, and Barbara E. Pope--; covers hot-button issues such as environmentalism, queerness, and marital status; and provides a new introduction that highlights the developments in the critical understanding of turn-of-the-century American women writers in all of their complexity.
248 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 18, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 26, 2025
This is far closer to what I wanted from New Penguin Book Of American Short Stories: this volume, featuring twelve woman writers, has a far more inclusive and boundary-opening approach to what is meant by 'American' including as it does a fuller range of non-white female writers. A few of the stories here are well-known: Edith Wharton's 'Souls Belated', 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (whose classist and racist opinions are called out in the introduction even while her feminist credentials are admired), the wonderful 'Sweat' by Zora Neale Hurston, but the rest were all new to me as were most of the other authors, apart from Sarah Orne Jewett.
The selection covers around 100 years from 1830 through to Hurston's 1926 piece and the over-riding concern with gender roles is striking - though that might well be down to editorial choices rather than necessarily saying something important about the topics about which American women were choosing to write and publish. Certainly, there is an interest in many of these tales in balancing domestic and personal roles, in thinking about how relationships between men and women can be optimised for both partners - the stories don't always document successes here but the topic is probed nonetheless.
With stories from Native American, Chinese-American, Mexican-American and others, this gives us an insight into the melting pot that always has been America even while the current administration wants to erase and re-write that history. There is, admittedly, a moral sentimentality about some of the tales here, especially - unsurprisingly - the nineteenth century ones.
But there are some dazzlers too: my favourite is 'The Little Room' by Madelene Yale Wynne (1895), an obliquely creepy little tale that subtly locates its horrors in a house inhabited by two unexpressive sisters. It's also worth noting 'Cacoethes Scribendi' by Catherine Maria Sedgwick (1830) which self-consciously makes fun of the 'mania' for women writing, and 'Life in the Iron-Mills' by Rebecca Harding Davis (1861) set against a carefully described class background that still rarely makes itself felt in literature.
An anthology, then, which gets the balance spot on between the canonical and introducing us to new voices - and reiterating the extent to which 'American' was a wide-open category for these women and the role of the short story in the history of women's writing.
The selection covers around 100 years from 1830 through to Hurston's 1926 piece and the over-riding concern with gender roles is striking - though that might well be down to editorial choices rather than necessarily saying something important about the topics about which American women were choosing to write and publish. Certainly, there is an interest in many of these tales in balancing domestic and personal roles, in thinking about how relationships between men and women can be optimised for both partners - the stories don't always document successes here but the topic is probed nonetheless.
With stories from Native American, Chinese-American, Mexican-American and others, this gives us an insight into the melting pot that always has been America even while the current administration wants to erase and re-write that history. There is, admittedly, a moral sentimentality about some of the tales here, especially - unsurprisingly - the nineteenth century ones.
But there are some dazzlers too: my favourite is 'The Little Room' by Madelene Yale Wynne (1895), an obliquely creepy little tale that subtly locates its horrors in a house inhabited by two unexpressive sisters. It's also worth noting 'Cacoethes Scribendi' by Catherine Maria Sedgwick (1830) which self-consciously makes fun of the 'mania' for women writing, and 'Life in the Iron-Mills' by Rebecca Harding Davis (1861) set against a carefully described class background that still rarely makes itself felt in literature.
An anthology, then, which gets the balance spot on between the canonical and introducing us to new voices - and reiterating the extent to which 'American' was a wide-open category for these women and the role of the short story in the history of women's writing.
May 3, 2026
With a time range of 1830-1926 this collection gathers some interesting snapshots of women of their time. In fact they are so of their time I had to struggle sometimes to understand the point of view of some characters - completely missed the point in the Wharton story for example. Jewett's story was both sad (guns) and delightful (a cow that figures out that the bell around her neck won't ring if she doesn't move). The Pope story about the woman from Wyoming who, I thought, must be part Indian. The one by Sui Sin Far, a reminder that Western sentiments are not universal. And a couple of wonderfully creepy ones - Gilman's Yellow Wall-Paper and Wynne's The Little Room. Zibrak's notes and introduction added some context.
June 26, 2026
Great forward that adds to the understanding of the collection and (for once!) doesn't include spoilers. Some of the stories I found much more engaging than others though.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews