?This seems an unusually well thought out addition to the ever increasing volume of women's studies. Working with 25 novels, Roller discusses not only the obvious political implications but some that are not so immediately apparent. As is customary in such studies, the feminist novels are seen as beginning with Kate Chopin's The Awakening. But Roller includes for analysis other works, such as The Dollmaker or The Man Who Loved Children--works that are not usually encountered in feminist writing. The author considers most feminist writings as attacks on the structures of modern life, attacks that are ideological and (contrarily) anti-ideology, defenses of the individual sensibility and subjectivity against the constant pressures of objectivity and sense. Almost too well documented, the monograph provides a lucid and (for all the author's commitment to the sensibilities supported in the novels examined) objective reading of the novels. Very thorough apparatus.?-Choice