The women's bestseller has become the acknowledged literary phenomenon of the last half-century. Madonne M. Miner takes the first critical look at this development and offers a serious reading of five of the most famous twentieth-century women's bestsellers--"Gone with the Wind," "Forever Amber," "Peyton Place," "Valley of the DollS," and "ScrupleS." She outlines repeated plot structures, image patterns, and thematic concerns. From these Miner constructs a twentieth-century white middle-class American woman's story, suggests ways in which female readers respond to women's bestsellers, and proposes a matrilineal linkage between the novels.