Quantities
All of us (English colleagues possibly excepted) know well that, when telling that we are doing research on women writers before the 20th century, we have to answer the question: “Did they exist?”. This question is in line with what was taught until quite recently in universities and schools, for instance in the famous Knuvelder manual of Dutch literature: 25 women, not even completely pre-1900 (I have not been into counting male names in the index):
G.P.M. Knuvelder, Beknopt handboek tot de geschiedenis der Nederlandse letterkunde (1982, 10th ed.):
A 19th-century anthology of female poets contains a lot more 17th- and 18th-century women. The book participates in this vogue described by Hilde Hoogenboom in her article about bio-bibliographical compilations of “female worthies” and famous women.
A.J. van der Aa, Parelen uit de lettervruchten van Nederlandsche dichteressen (1856):
The authors of a much more recent anthology of Dutch-language women authors have been discovering 150 female authors active between 1550 and 1850:
Riet Schenkeveld-van der Dussen et al., Met en zonder lauwerkrans. Schrijvende vrouwen uit de vroegmoderne tijd (1997):
But it is only when doing more systematic research in sources such as library catalogues, periodical press, or lists of translations, that numbers really rise:
Database WomenWriters (now):
- over 750 women born before 1875
Some examples of "women authors" (?):
SvD, 17 November 2009
- Conferences > NEWW November meetings > 2009 > Quantities