"A pivotal book, one of those after which we will never think the same again."--Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Washington Post Book World

A pathbreaking book of literary criticism is now reissued with a new introduction by Lisa Appignanesi that speaks to how The Madwoman in the Attic set the groundwork for subsequent generations of scholars writing about women writers, and why the book still feels fresh some four decades later. 'Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar offer a bold new interpretation of the great 19th century women novelists, and in doing so they present the first persuasive case for the existence of a distinctly female imagination. Like gnostic heretics who claim to have found the secret code that unlocks the mysteries in old texts, the authors force us to take anew look at the grandes dames of English literature, and the result is that they will never seem quite the same again.' -Le Anne Schreiber, The New York Times Book Review