A celebration of the Virago Modern Classics

Writers as Readers is a celebration of forty years of the Virago Modern Classics list. Started in 1978, Virago Modern Classics is dedicated to the rediscovery and championing of women writers, challenging the often narrow definition of 'classic'.

In this collection, forty of the most significant writers of the past century tell us about one of their favourite writers by introducing books from the Virago Modern Classics collection, offering a glimpse at the treasures that have been published over the past four decades: they may be great works of literature; they may be wonderful period pieces; they may reveal particular aspects of women's lives; they may be classics of comedy, storytelling, diary-writing or autobiography.

Essays in the collection include: Hilary Mantel on Elizabeth Taylor, Kate Saunders on Barbara Pym, Alexander McCall Smith on Angela Thirkell, Jane Gardam on Barbara Comyns, Sarah Dunant on Daphne du Maurier, Angela Carter on Charlotte Bronte, Paula McLain on Mary McCarthy, Linda Grant on Beryl Bainbridge, Penelope Lively on Edith Wharton, Rachel Cooke on Stevie Smith, Mark Bostridge on Vera Brittain, Jonathan Coe on Rosamond Lehmann, Maggie O'Farrell on Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Jilly Cooper on E. M. Delafield, Julie Burchill on Jacqueline Susann, Carmen Callil on Angela Carter, Sophie Dahl on Stella Gibbons, Diana Souhami on Radclyffe Hall, Amanda Craig on Rebecca West and Marina Lewycka on Monica Dickens, as well as many other Virago Modern Classics treasures.