In recent years, much exciting work has been done by feminists working on the eighteenth century. This anthology will give students access to the kinds of documents by and about women which have been a major source for their analyses. The texts collected here demonstrate the construction in the period of a powerful, and still current, ideology of femininity and explore its effects on ideas of sexuality, women's education and women's writing - as well as illustrating the oppositional voices of early feminists. The texts included range widely: from 'conduct manuals' instructing women in proper behaviour, to pamphlets on prostitution; from medical texts defining female sexuality, to critical definitions of female writing; from anti-female satires, to French Revolution-inspired appeals for female equality.