This pioneering study of previously unknown or marginal West Indian writing by women queries the accepted wisdom that women's voices were absent from the narrative record until the late twentieth century. It demonstrates that while only a few texts by non-white women have survived, there does exist an eclectic body of work by white women, expatriate, resident and Creole. Surveying a sample of fascinating material from novels, stories and homilies, memoirs, letters, travel journals and autobiographies, the book focuses on who these women were and what kind of narratives they produced. It also asks whether these can be subsumed under a single classificatory label, "West Indian Women's writing", and how the narratives construct the region, for those at home and those at the centre, during a particularly important period in the formulation of West Indian and English identities. The first section of the book provides an overview of the commonly circulated literary stereotypes of white women in West Indian plantation society. Evelyn O'Callaghan considers how these early texts demonstrate multiple narrative positions, and the interdependence of black and white female roles and identities which confound simplified reductions. The central section focuses on women's construction of "the West Indies" and how the region and its people emerge in terms of disparate, even contradictory tropes. Throughout, the "in-betweenity" of the white Creole woman adds a further dimension to the complex signification of "home" and identity. The book concludes with an overview of theoretical debates on colonial discourse, and suggests the advantages and pitfalls of several "mainstream" post-colonial approaches. Several links between early and current regional writing by women are also posited. O'Callaghan insists that careful reading of these heterogeneous early narratives can enrich understanding of what and how the past meant/means, a crucial exercise if the multi-voicedness of Caribbean peoples is to resound in all its complexity. The scope and depth of this study make this book essential reading for students and academics within the fields of colonial, post-colonial, feminist and Caribbean literary history.