Feminista!'s "100 Great 20th Century Works of Fiction by Women"

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While we’d [Feminista!] agree that the Modern Library’s list features some extraordinary and wonderful works of fiction, we’re a little dismayed by a list of major 20th century English language novels that completely overlooks such writers as Margaret Atwood, Nadine Gordimer, Zora Neale Hurston, Harper Lee, Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison and Sylvia Plath. We could go on, but instead we’ve compiled our own list of 100 Great 20th Century English-language Works of Fiction by Women. In order to choose the works on the list, women’s online forums and lists were canvassed. Unlike the Modern Library’s, our list is not ranked. We’ve also restricted it to one work per author, since our aim was to showcase the extraordinary richness and variety of 20th century fiction by women.

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  1. 51.
    Almanac of the Dead
    by Leslie Marmon Silko

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  2. 52.
    The Group
    by Mary McCarthy

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  3. 53.
    Ballad Of The Sad Cafe
    by Carson Mccullers

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  4. 54.
    Mama
    by Terry McMillan

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  5. 55.
    Patience & Sarah (Little Sister's Classics)
    by Isabel Miller

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  6. 56.
    Gone With the Wind
    by Margaret Mitchell

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  7. 57.
    Anagrams
    by Lorrie Moore

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  8. 58.
    Beloved
    by Toni Morrison

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  9. 59.
    Wife
    by Bharati Mukherjee

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  10. 60.
    Lives of Girls and Women: A Novel
    by Alice Munro

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  11. 61.
    A Severed Head
    by Iris Murdoch

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  12. 62.
    You Must Remember This
    by Joyce Carol Oates

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  13. 63.
    The House of Splendid Isolation: A Novel
    by Edna O'Brien

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  14. 64.
    A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
    by Flannery O'Connor

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  15. 65.
    Tell Me a Riddle
    by TILLIE OLSEN

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  16. 66.
    Enormous Changes at the Last Minute: Stories
    by Grace Paley

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  17. 67.
    Complete Stories
    by Dorothy Parker

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  18. 68.
    Black Tickets: Stories
    by Jayne Anne Phillips

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  19. 69.
    Braided Lives
    by Marge Piercy

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  20. 70.
    The Bell Jar: A Novel (Perennial Classics)
    by Sylvia Plath

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  21. 71.
    Ship of Fools
    by Katherine Ann Porter

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  22. 72.
    The Golden Spur
    by Dawn Powell

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  23. 73.
    The Shipping News
    by E. Annie Proulx

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  24. 74.
    The Fountainhead
    by Ayn Rand

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  25. 75.
    The King Must Die: A Novel
    by Mary Renault

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  26. 76.
    Wide Sargasso Sea (Norton Paperback Fiction)
    by Jean Rhys

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  27. 77.
    Housekeeping: A Novel
    by Marilynne Robinson

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  28. 78.
    The God of Small Things
    by Arundhati Roy

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  29. 79.
    Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing
    by May Sarton

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  30. 80.
    The Stone Diaries
    by Carol Shields

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  31. 81.
    The Weight of Water
    by Anita Shreve

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  32. 82.
    Anywhere but Here
    by Mona Simpson

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  33. 83.
    By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
    by Elizabeth Smart

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  34. 84.
    Age of Grief
    by Jane Smiley

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  35. 85.
    The Volcano Lover : A Romance
    by Susan Sontag

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  36. 86.
    The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
    by Muriel Spark

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  37. 87.
    The Man Who Loved Children (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
    by Christina Stead

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  38. 88.
    Three Lives (Dover Thrift Editions)
    by Gertrude Stein

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  39. 89.
    Angel (Virago Modern Classics)
    by Elizabeth Taylor

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  40. 90.
    The Joy Luck Club
    by Amy Tan

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  41. 91.
    If Morning Ever Comes: A Novel
    by Anne Tyler

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  42. 92.
    Away: A Novel
    by Jane Urquhart

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  43. 93.
    The Color Purple
    by Alice Walker

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  44. 94.
    Life and Loves of a She Devil
    by Fay Weldon

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  45. 95.
    The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
    by Eudora Welty

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  46. 96.
    The Return of the Soldier
    by Rebecca West

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  47. 97.
    Ethan Frome (Signet Classics)
    by Edith Wharton

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  48. 98.
    Frost in May (Virago Modern Classics)
    by Antonia White

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  49. 99.
    Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Winterson, Jeanette)
    by Jeanette Winterson

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  50. 100.
    Mrs. Dalloway
    by Virginia Woolf

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Created by Robot Co-op on Nov 30, 2005.
 

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