Women Writers Catalogue 2026 by British Library Publishing

British Library Women Writers

The Women Writers series from British Library Publishing brings back and contextualises novels by authors who were successful in their day. Through powerful storytelling, these novels portray issues that women faced during the twentieth century and highlight society’s changing attitudes toward female behaviour through the decades.

Launched in 2020, the series now comprises over 30 titles which encompass satirical musings on ageing, parallel narratives, body swaps, fictionalised depictions of true crime, coming-of-age stories, and reflections on singledom, sex, marriage and infidelity. More recently, anthologies have been successfully introduced, bringing together new collections of short stories by well-known and forgotten authors that span the twentieth century.

This catalogue contains information on the latest titles released in 2025 and 2026, together with bibliographic details on previously published titles available to order from British Library Publishing.

Each novel includes a new preface, an author biography, a chronology of the significant events during the decade of the novel’s setting or publication and an afterword discussing the key issues in the story.

Prefaces are written by British Library curators and modern female authors. The Afterwords are written by Series Consultant Simon Thomas, who created the middlebrow fiction blog Stuck in a Book in 2007. The site receives more than 10,000 visitors each month. Simon hosts other book-blogging projects such as A Century of Books. He is also the co-host of the popular podcast Tea or Books? Simon has a PhD from Oxford University in Interwar Literature and lives in Oxfordshire.

stuckinabook.com @stuck_inabook

Stories for Lovers

Margaret Atwood, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Taylor and many more

Paperback with flaps £10.99

ISBN 978 0 71235 553 7

224 pages, 190 x 130 mm

Publishing January 2026

This new anthology brings together the creative minds of:

Margaret Atwood

Virginia Woolf

Elizabeth Taylor

E M Delafield

Ling Shuhua

Dorothy Parker

Malachi Whitaker

Richmal Crompton

Carol Shields and more

Fall head over heels with this collection of unconventional and heartfelt romances that will leave you longing for more. From icons of feminist literature to forgotten Chinese modernists, these women writers chart evolutions of love across lifetimes, from the first flush of youth to growing old together.

Women writers of the 20th century had a complex relationship with romantic fiction, at once limited and legitimised by the often denigrated category of ‘love story’. From sneaking out of the house to go on tentative first dates to honeymoon bliss and chance meetings on trains, the heady rush of falling in love infuses the stories in this collection. But there are few fairy-tale endings here: a woman shares the gothic tale of her first love, the rekindling of an old flame is complicated by the baggage of two lifetimes, and a musician conducts an extramarital affair with calculated precision.

The Spring House

Cynthia Asquith, with a Preface by Joanna Quinn

Final cover TBC

Paperback with flaps £10.99

ISBN 978 0 7123 5504 9 304 pages, 190 x 130 mm Publishing June 2026

Cynthia Asquith (1887–1960) was an author and socialite, best known for her supernatural stories and close friendships with prominent authors such as D H Lawrence and J M Barrie. The Spring House was her first novel. She also wrote biographies and children’s books and edited a well-known anthology of supernatural stories called The Ghost Book. In 1910 she married Herbert Dixon Asquith, the son of Prime Minister H H Asquith.

It is 1915, and Miranda Gray is spending the war on the other side of the Atlantic to her Canadian husband. Staying with her eccentric relatives and young son at her family’s stately home, Star Cross, Miranda struggles to find her wartime role. Is she the stoic wife of a distant military man, the duty-bound nurse, the promiscuous society hostess, reluctant muse to a pacifist poet, a mother, a sister, a daughter, or some amalgamation of all? Gradually, as the war brings death and destruction to those closest to her, Miranda is offered a glimpse of something beyond these stilted roles – a chance at real love.

The Spring House artfully balances humour and devastation; at once a deftly written psychological portrait and a social document revealing the slow birth of the 20th century and the new woman. Republished for the first time since its original release in 1936, this edition features an original preface by Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre.

Stories for the 12 Days of Christmas

In medieval times, Christmas was not a single day but a twelve-day festival incorporating saints’ days and feast days. This book seeks to revive this ritual period by mapping these ancient celebrations onto their 20th century equivalents. Courtly masques become pantomimes, feasts in the Great Hall become festive dinner parties and winter hunts become countryside dog walks. Alongside these modern equivalencies, the collection also touches on the historic commonalities of the season: love, family, finding connection and embracing new beginnings.

Cover TBC

Paperback £10.99

ISBN 9780712369909

224 pages, 190 x 130 mm

Publishing September 2026

Stories for Mothers and Daughters

A Lake District Story

E. M. Ward

Paperback with flaps £9.99

ISBN 9780712355803

224 pages, 190 x 130 mm

Dorothy

Mollie

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Front cover by Sinem Erkas.

Specifications, prices and covers in this catalogue are subject to change prior to publication.

A catalogue of forthcoming titles and catalogues of backlist fiction in the British Library Crime Classics, Tales of the Weird and Gilded Nightmares series may be viewed alongside this catalogue online at issuu.com/bl_publishing