The authors in this book try to expand the American literary canon by women writers, who do not always fit into genres and periods established on the basis of men's writings. These essays rediscover and 'fit' female writers into the 'white male' scheme of anthologies and college courses, editors Margaret Dickie and Joyce W. Warren question the current boundaries of literary periods, advocating a revised literary canon. The essays consider a wide range of American women writers, including Mary Rowlandson, Margaret Fuller, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emily Dickinson, Frances Harper, Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein, Amy Lowell and Adrienne Rich, discussing how the present classification of these writers by periods affects our reading of their work. This volume also studies issues of a need for literary reforms considering differences in race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality