Introduction: Selfishness underlying all -- Ruth Hall !1855): The devil and Fanny Fern -- The story of Avis (1877): scenes from a marriage, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps -- The awakening (1899): Kate Chopin's crimes against polite society -- The song of the lark (1915): the exception of Willa Cather -- The heart is a lonely hunter (1940): Carson McCullers's young woman with a great future behind her -- The bell jar (1963): the apprenticeship of Sylvia Plath -- The artist heroine today: a ritual for being born.
