Devoted to Mary Hays's Female Biography; or, memoirs of illustrious and celebrated women from all ages and nations (1803), this book explores Hays's larger ambitions to lay the foundation for an encyclopaedic work by, for, and about women. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women's Writing.

Mary Spongberg is Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research at Southern Cross University, Australia.

Gina Luria Walker is Professor of Women's Studies and Director of The New Historia at The New School, New York City, USA.

Introduction 1. "I Sought & Made to Myself an Extraordinary Destiny" 2. The Trial(s) of Queen Caroline and Hays's Memoirs of Queens, Illustrious and Celebrated 3. The Turbulent Seas of Cultural Sisterhood: French Connections in Mary Hays's Female Biography (1803) 4. Lost in Translation: Mary Hays Reads Heloise 5. The Spanish Monarchy in Mary Hays's Biographical Works 6. Mary Hays's Female Biography: Feminist Remix 7. Rioting in Intellectual Luxury: The Innovations and Influence of Mary Hays's "Catherine Macaulay Graham" 8. "The Very Worst Woman I Ever Heard of": Rosina Bulwer Lytton and Biography as Vindication 9. "Women's Writing on Women's Writing": Mayy Ziyada's Literary Biographies as Egyptian Feminist History