Educated at the Universities of Lancaster, London, and Kent, Norma Clarke is a Research Fellow in the English Department, Kingston University, and an Honorary Research Fellow in the History Department, Royal Holloway College, University of London. She is the author of five novels for children, numerous articles and several books, including Ambitious Heights (1990) and, with Helen Weinstein, Spinning with the Brain (1996).
A book of subtlety and distinction, a reminder of just how far feminist literary scholarship has come * Guardian * This book achieves far more than the rehabilitation of forgotten authors... Instead, she investigates the broader mechanisms of fame, the formation of authorial personae, and the mysterious reasons why some names rise while others fall...This is a subtle, persuasive and engrossing study * Independent * Inspirational...reveals a rich history of literary women who not only made a living from writing but were treated as the equals of their male peers... [It] should be a set textbook in English classes * Herald *