50 Most Influential Books by Women

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

The Guardian, 53 Books

This list, curated by Robert McCrum and originally published on The Guardian's platform, aims to present an alternative perspective to a previously male-dominated selection by highlighting the 50 most influential books by women. The list was compiled in response to criticisms of McCrum's earlier work and focuses on the impact of each writer or their work on literary history, noting a shift in the representation of women in literature post-1900 due to societal changes. McCrum constructed the list independently, without consulting any pre-existing catalogues, to address the underrepresentation of women in historical literary discussions.

This list was originally published in 2013 and was added to this site over 1 year ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
705 Oroonoko Aphra Behn 1688 British English
15910 The Female Wits Mary Pix, Catherine Trotter, Delariviere Manley 1696 British English
15910 Letters And Poems Mary Wortley Montagu 1800 British English
15910 The Female Advocate Mary Scott 1774 Unknown English
845 Evelina Fanny Burney 1778 British English
15910 Sacred Dramas Hannah More 1782 British English
5862 The Grasmere Journal Dorothy Wordsworth 1897 British English
774 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft 1792 British English
821 Castle Rackrent Maria Edgeworth 1800 British English
15910 Female Biography Mary Hays 1803 British English
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
8655 Domestic Manners of the Americans Fanny Trollope 1832 British English
1103 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë 1848 British English
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
439 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell 1855 British English
15910 Mrs Beeton's Book Of Household Management Isabella Beeton 1861 British English
15910 Biographies Of Good Women Charlotte M Yonge 1866 British English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
156 Poems of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson 1890 American English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
1014 The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter 1902 British English
2434 The Scarlet Pimpernel Baroness Emmuska Orczy 1905 British English
2437 The Railway Children Edith Nesbit 1906 British English
15910 In A German Pension Katherine Mansfield 1911 British English
1220 The Return of the Soldier Rebecca West 1918 British English
14985 Complete Stories Dorothy Parker 1995 American English
801 The Mysterious Affair at Styles Agatha Christie 1920 British English
15910 Pastors And Masters Ivy Compton-Burnett 1925 British English
173 A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf 1929 British English
2455 Frost In May Antonia White 1933 British English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
472 The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead 1940 Australian English
575 I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith 1948 British English
419 The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey 1951 British English
14788 French Country Cooking Elizabeth David 1951 British English
143 The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith 1955 American English
15910 The Colossus And Other Poems Sylvia Plath 1960 American English
169 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
772 The Group Mary McCarthy 1963 American English
61 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
1259 The Female Eunuch Germaine Greer 1970 Australian English
1549 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor 1971 British English
17152 An Unsuitable Job For A Woman P. D. James 1972 British English
1136 The Black Prince Iris Murdoch 1973 British English
2855 The Bottle Factory Outing Beryl Bainbridge 1974 British English
2103 The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories Angela Carter 1979 British English
331 Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson 1980 American English
17152 Whoever She Was Carol Ann Duffy 1987 British English
3592 The Gruffalo Julia Donaldson 1999 British English
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English