The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, co-authored by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, is a nonfiction scholarly text comprising 16 interconnected essays. Published in 1979, this lengthy volume is now widely considered a foundational text of feminist literary criticism. A second edition appeared in 2000 accompanied by a new Introduction by the authors that offers readers insight into Gilbert and Gubar’s decision to focus the work on the 19th century. The authors also respond to the social changes that have taken place in the 20 years between the first and second editions.

In the fall of 1973, Gilbert and Gubar met at the male-dominated English department at Indiana University; at this time, only four of Indiana’s 70 English professors were women. As born and bred New Yorkers, both women felt out of place in the Midwest, and they quickly became friends and collaborators. When they team-taught an English literature seminar course on women for seniors at Indiana University, they selected the texts for their course syllabus according to their own favorite women writers. Gilbert’s expertise in 20th-century poetry, Gubar’s training in the 18th-century novel, and their shared passion for the female writers of the 19th century enabled them to develop the lectures that became the foundation of The Madwoman in the Attic.