Searching You can search by clicking on one of the following links on the upper side of the screen. "Authors" to search for an author "Works" to search for a work "Receptions" to search for a reception Some hints for the various fields on which you can search: Author of reception document Use this field to find receptions by this person. To find receptions by a woman: search on her name To find receptions by a category (i.e. by men): search on the category To find receptions by a specific man: search on his name in the "title of reception document" field Author of work Use this field to find receptions of the works of this writer. Country This list contains only countries, not the areas in which a language was spoken. Sometimes you are uncertain about a country, for instance if you don't know if a writer who wrote in German lived in Germany, Austria, Switzerland or even the double-monarchy. Similary if a writer wrote in various languages or in the language that was not the official one of the country in which she lived. In such cases, it's best to try all possible countries (or no country at all) Elements of bibliography In this field you can search for various bibliographical works Gender The list of authors also ..\includes: * some names of persons who are not known for certain to be female (to find them choose "both") * various categories for male authors (e.g. translator) - their names, if known, are specified in the relevant records Genre The list allows you to choose amongst a number of genres. We have chosen to use fairly broadly defined genres, instead of splitting them into more precise subgenres (like historical novel, novel in letters). Living in year You can only search on a single year. Searching on a period of time is not possible Name Search in the names of "authors". The term "authors" here ..\includes translators and reporters, and any other women who have addressed themselves to a wider audience in writing or in print. Not included are women who just kept a diary or only wrote private letters. When searching, a part of the name often suffices. Receiving country Choose the country for which you'd like to see data on receptions. Please note: if you're looking for translations into a particular language, try all the countries in which this language was used. Records per page You can change this value if you'd like to see more records per page Reference Search on references to the source of a reception (such as journal, volume and page number of an article) Source This list contains the various sources in which data can be found. These include 18th and 19th century journals, library catalogues and lists of translations. By selecting one, you get the data which were found in this source. Title of reception document Search on the title of a translation, article etc. You can also use this field to search male reception-authors by name. Topos Search on narrative elements that can have a part in women's texts. Such elements, called "narrative topoi", are indicated with a code which was developed by SATOR (Société pour l'Analyse de la Topique Romanesque; see www.sator.org. At the moment, these codes are only available in French. We are working on selecting topoi that can be considered relevant for the field of female authorship. Type of reception document This is a list of the various types of receptions: translation, journal article, comments in an egodocument etc. By selecting one, you get data on receptions of that particular type. Words of title You can search on the whole or part of a title. If you search on common words, the number of results may be too high. Try searching on words that are unique to the title you're looking for. Written/published in year Search on the year in which a reception was written or published. The "Reports" link takes you to a page with reports. Reports contain all the data in this database, grouped in various ways. Editors can use "login" link to get to the login page.


Welcome to WomenWriters

This database contains information on the production of women authors from the middle ages up to c. 1900, and on the reception of their works by contemporaries as well as early literary historians (both men and women). Are concerned: women active as authors in European countries and their (former) colonies. Thus the database allows the study of these women's writing in their international context, and the place to be attributed to them in transnational historiography.

The database is one of the first products of the research project Women Writers and their audiences (1997-2004), financed by NWO (Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research). It was placed on the Internet in April 2001, was granted the "International Innovation Award 2005" on the occasion of the XVIth International Conference of the Association for History and Computing (Amsterdam), and has formed/forms the basis of a series of digitization, research and networking projects (www.womenwriters.nl). They were/are carried out, under the direction of Suzan van Dijk, at the University of Utrecht's Research Institute for History and Culture (OGC) and the Huygens ING of the KNAW (Royal Academy of Sciences) in The Hague.

Part of the data is accessible without password. Researchers or (advanced) students wishing to gain access to the complete records are invited to take contact with Suzan van Dijk (suzan.van.dijk@huygens.knaw.nl). Users should be aware that the database is a work in progress, and not a publication site. For that reason information should be checked!

Nevertheless, as the purpose of this database is to facilitate research into the position, production and (contemporary) reception of women writers, the information it contains may be used by researchers, students, librarians, and others. Normal copyright restrictions do not apply. Users are simply asked to respect standard rules for accreditation when quoting or borrowing from the database content, by specifying as follows:

"This information was derived from/obtained via the database WomenWriters (ed. Suzan van Dijk), www.databasewomenwriters.nl (cons. [date])".

When clicking one of the words AUTHORS, WORKS, RECEPTIONS, on the right side, you get access to:

  • Biographical information about the authors: dates, production, links to other sites, etc.
  • Information about the works: dates of publication, editions and re-editions, links to other sites, etc.
  • References to texts and factual information evidencing the (international) reception of the works, e.g. reviews in the periodical press, translations, etc.


Requirements for your computer:
You can search the database with any current browser.
If you want to contribute, you can use Internet Explorer 6 or 7 on Windows, Firefox 1.5 or 2 (on all platforms), Opera 9 (on all platforms), or Safari 1.3 and newer (on Mac OS X 10.3.9 and 10.4)

Huygens ING

Project "Dutch Women Writers"

Dr. Suzan van Dijk

PO Box 90754

2509 LT The Hague

Netherlands

http://www.huygens.knaw.nl/vandijk

http://www.womenwriters.nl