This bio-bibliographical reference book will acquaint the reader with the lives and works of some of the most important women writers in the history of French literature. Fifty-one essays cover the lives and works of individual writers with an emphasis on their experiences as writers, a discussion of their major themes, and brief surveys of critical reactions. The names of many of the writers included will be familiar to students of literature for they have long been included in the French literary canon. Some, however, will be unknown even to the specialist. Each essay is followed by a bibliography of primary works, a list of titles translated into English, and a selection of critical studies. An additional essay describes the trobairitz, the women troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The volume ends with a chronology which features the dates of events and trends of special significance to French women. The chronology also serves to place their writings in the context of important literary movements and alongside the productions of their usually better-known male contemporaries.Like other Greenwood bio-bibliographical source books, French Women Writers is intended for use by general readers as well as students and scholars of French and world history and literature.