Celebrating Women’s History Month with Selections from Literature and Rare Books!

A new exhibit case featuring works by women writers is now on display outside the Maryland Room in Hornbake Library!

Taken from the literature and rare book collections in Special Collections and University Archives, these books represent a variety of genres and styles; from the popular girl detective adventure Nancy Drew #1: The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene to the powerful poetry of Baltimore native and abolitionist Frances Ellen Watkins.

Included in the exhibit are the landmark works of mother and daughter Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelly. Wollstonecraft wrote the highly influential, early feminist work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792). 26 years later, her daughter Mary Shelly penned the horror classic Frankenstein (1818). An early 1796 edition of A Vindication of the Rights of Women is on display alongside a WWII armed services edition of Frankenstein.

Also included is Katherine Anne Porter’s collection of short novels, Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939). The eponymous story is an account of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, which Porter herself was stricken with while working as a reporter in Denver, Colorado. Special Collections and University Archives is home to the Katherine Anne Porter literary archive.

Two works by artist/author Djuna Barnes are also featured: Ryder (1928), and Nightwood (1936), one of the first works of lesbian literature. Special Collections and University Archives is also home to the Djuna Barnes literary archive.

Works by Anaïs Nin, Lucille Clifton, Emily Dickinson, Zora Neale Hurston, Kau Boyle, Virginia Wolf, Flannery O’Conner, Gertrude Stein, and Louisa May Alcott are also on display.

Stop by the Maryland Room to view this colorful and diverse selection of works by women authors. Interested in exploring more works by women? Check out literary special collections, housed in Hornbake Library, or contact us!