\\

Women’s Knowledge Digital Library

The Stainforth Library of Women’s Writing

A yellow and multicolored book with a Stainforth bookplate
Project recovers activist library and draws attention to women’s book history and literary history.

Description

Francis John Stainforth (1797-1866), an Anglican clergyman, owned the largest private library of Anglophone women’s writing collected during the mid-nineteenth century. His library catalog lists 7,122 editions (over 8,000 volumes) authored and edited by more than 2,800 writers, nearly all of whom are women who have been left out of literary and book histories. By digitizing Stainforth’s library catalog manuscript and making it searchable, we draw critical attention to the unrecognized extent of authorship and women’s writing in circulation in the nineteenth century. We also point to the fact that these authors and their texts, many of which are now rare or “lost,” at one time counted.

Source

https://stainforth.scu.edu/

Language

English

Collections

Tags

Related Resources

Jane Austen among Women

In an age when genteel women wrote little more than personal letters, how did Jane Austen manage to become a novelist?

The Amelia Bloomer Book List

An annual annotated book list of well-written and well-illustrated books with significant feminist content, intended for young readers.

css.php