Eve Bites Back: An Alternative History of English Literature

Anna Beer investigates the lives and achievements of eight women writers, uncovering a startling and unconventional history of literature

Margery Kempe. Aemilia Lanyer. Aphra Behn. Lady Mary. Jane Austen.

Warned not to write – and certainly not to bite – these women put pen to paper anyway and wrote themselves into history.

‘Smart, funny and highly readable... a tour de force.’ A.L. Kennedy

Ever since Sappho first put stylus to papyrus, women who write have been labelled mad, undisciplined and dangerous. Funny and provocative, Eve Bites Back offers an alternative history of English literature. Placing the female contemporaries of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton centre stage, Anna Beer builds a vibrant new canon through Restoration wits, scandalous sensation novelists and medieval mystics.

Delving into the lives and work of eight pioneers – Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Aemilia Lanyer, Anne Bradstreet, Aphra Behn, Mary Wortley Montagu, Jane Austen and Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Beer uncovers the struggles and triumphs of these gamechangers, ground-breakers and genre-makers.