We all face struggle at some point in our lives.

We find ourselves stuck in situations that we

simply cannot cope with alone. This is when we need hope, inspiration and motivation to
overcome our darkest moments. This is when we need worlds and stories to escape in. My
definition of such a different world is always given by women writers’ stories, by their
sensibility, imagination and their feminity.

Therefore, my paper’s intention is, on one hand, to reunite the most outstanding women
writers of British literature and, on the other hand, to establish uniquely a close relation
between women`s condition-women writers` literary activity and depiction of female
characters in their works. To realise this, I will make use of Elaine Showalter’s study “A
Literature of Their Own” and I will present important British women writers and their works
of art through the vision of the study, such as: Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Florence
Marryat, Virginia Woolf or J.K. Rowling.

In the A Literature of Their Own ‘s study, Elaine Showalter shows how women's literature
has evolved, starting from the Victorian period to modern writing. She breaks down the
movement into three stages — the Feminine, a period beginning with the use of the male
pseudonym in the 1840s until 1880; the Feminist, from 1880 until the winning of the vote in
1920; and the Female, from 1920 until the present-day.

Showalter finds in each subculture, and thus in women's literature, first a long period of
imitation of the dominant structures of tradition. This Feminine phase includes women writers
such as the Brontës, Jane Austen or George Eliot. These women attempted to integrate
themselves into a public sphere, a male tradition, and many of them felt a conflict of
"obedience and resistance" which appears in many of their novels. Charlotte Bronte was a
famous English novelist and poet who left behind a rich legacy of written work which
includes classical novels like ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘Shirley’ and ‘Villette’. A dominant and ambitious
woman from a young age, she was someone who refused to blindly follow the norms the
society demanded of women during her time. Emily Bronte is an exponent of English
literature and her only novel has been regarded as a masterpiece. The novel has received
much acclamation and is among one of the greatest novels of English literature. Although the
writer did not live long even to celebrate the success of her novel yet this is a great
contribution which she has made to the literary world. The English writer Jane Austen was
one of the most important novelists of the nineteenth century. In her intense concentration on
the thoughts and feelings of a limited number of characters, Jane Austen created as profound
an understanding and as precise a vision of the potential of the human spirit as the art of
fiction has ever achieved. Although her novels received favorable reviews, she was not
celebrated as an author during her lifetime.
In the second stage, the minority lashes out against the traditional standards and values,
demanding their rights and sovereignty to be recognized. In this Feminist phase, women's
literature had varying angles of attack. Some women wrote social commentaries, translating
their own sufferings to those of the poor, the laboring class, slaves, and prostitutes, thereby
venting their sense of injustice in an acceptable manner. Mary Elizabeth Braddon was a
Victorian popular novelist best known for her sensation fiction. Born in the Soho section of
London, on 4 October 1835, Braddon worked as an actress for several years to support herself
and her mother Fanny, who had separated from her father Henry in 1840. She also tried
writing for local publications, and by 1860 she began publishing “penny dreadful” short
stories in the Welcome Guest, the Halfpenny Marvel, and magazines published by John
Maxwell, who became her lifelong domestic partner in 1861. Florence Marryat was a British
author and actress. The daughter of author Capt. Frederick Marryat and his wife Catherine,
she was particularly known for her sensational novels and her involvement with several
celebrated spiritual mediums of the late 19th century. Her works include There is No Death
(1891) and The Spirit World (1894). She was a prolific author, writing over 70 books,
newspaper and magazine articles, short stories and works for the stage.

The third period, then, is characterized by a self-discovery and some freedom "from some of
the dependency of opposition" as a means for self-definition. Some writers end up turning
inward during the subsequent search for identity. Dorothy Richardson, Katherine Mansfield,
and Virginia Woolf worked towards a female aesthetic, elevating sexuality to a world-
polarizing determination. Virginia Woolf was an English author and novelist who wrote
modernist classics. Not only is she known as a pioneer of modernism, but is also known as the
greatest modernist literary personality of the twentieth century. Virginia Woolf had begun
writing professionally in 1900. The first of her writings, which was a journalistic account of a
visit to the Bronte family, was published anonymously in a journal in December 1904. She
started writing for ‘The Times Literary Supplement’ the following year. Agatha Christie,
known as the ‘Queen of Crime’, was a renowned English writer who wrote over 66 detective
novels. She is best known as the creator of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and village lady
Miss Marple. She is credited for writing world’s longest running play ‘The Mousetrap’.

Little did she, in her wildest dreams, anticipate that a delayed train journey from Manchester
to London would change her life for good! The woman behind the Harry Potter franchise, J.K.
Rowling or simply Joanne Rowling is one of the best-selling authors today. Rowling’s is a
typical rags to riches story - from living on state benefits to becoming the multi-millionaire
author, her life took a complete 180 degree turn when the first book of her conceptualized
dream materialized on the bookstand by the name, ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’.

From my point of view, knowing these women’s stories provides essential role models for
everyone and that’s what society genuinely needs a lot of to face the ever-constant changes
and overbearing challenges of this century. In the face of adversity, the greatest female
writers to look toward are described in the Elaine Showalter’s study “A Literature of Their
Own”. These British women writers proved through their courage of surpassing all kinds of
boundaries, which appear in their literary activity, that they are even stronger than men, just
as a well known proverb says :

“ What does not kill you, makes you stronger!”