1w ago

Who are the best female authors of all time?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39643616

114 comments

Ursula K LeGuin?
- /thread
- That's what first popped into my head and ofc it is the top answer hah
- Sorry, but read "Walk To The end Of The World" by Suzy McKee Charnas,

Fiction
Ursula K. LeGuin
Octavia Butler
Margaret Atwood
Tui T. Sutherland (J Fic)
Suzanne Collins (YA)
Lois Lowry (YA)
Non-Fiction
Naomi Klein
Margaret Atwood (Massey Lecture)
Angela Y. Davis
Tanya Talaga
bell hooks
Robin Wall Kimmerer

Ursula le Guin is a great SF writer

Obviously, Mary Shelley. Created the most famous character of all time and the entire genre of science fiction while still a teenager.
I'm a fan of Tanith Lee. She started weird fantasy and Neil Gaiman stole all his best ideas and most of his writing style from her.
Karen Slaughter writes detective novels that make Jack Reacher look like a school boy.
Tana French is Slaughter's Irsih cousin.
Joanna Russ was an out Lesbian back in the 1970s. "The Female Man" is still cutting edge.
- I'm curious about your Lee/gaiman idea. I can't see it at all and Don't Bite the Sun is my fav ever.
  
  In "Death's Master" the Demon Prince refers to the Lord of Delusions as "uncousin."
  In the 'Sandman' comics there are a lot of little cut-away stories, just like the tale of the teardrop necklace in "Night's Master."

No love for Jane Austen? Some of her works are all time classic. They could probably compete with top 10 literature work of 17th-18th century.
Another author that's under appreciated would be Gertrude Stein.
- Yeah, Jane Austen's easily one of the top 20 English novelists of all time, and one of my personal favorites. She gets kind of a mixed appreciation these days bc the movies made from her novels usually focus on the romance (often in a way that would have scandalized her) and skimp on her commentary about human nature and society's pressures. And plus her prose is just gorgeous and that is difficult to adapt to film. Probably the best adaptation is the BBC 1980 Pride and Prejudice miniseries ( wikipedia , tubi ) which was adapted by Fay Weldon, who was a novelist in her own right. That miniseries turns a lot of Austen's prose into dialogue, which is beautiful to hear in that context, though as a consequence the series is a little slow for a wide modern audience. Really you have to read the books themselves.
  
  She's also incredibly funny (and sometimes savage) which also gets lost in many adaptations, since it's in her commentary and not necessarily in the dialog.
  She was not a woman of many words; for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the number of her ideas.

Ursula LeGuin
Margaret Atwood
Diana Wynne Jones
and for personal preference, Robin McKinley

Mary Shelley has to be up there for inventing Sci-Fi.
- Some would say that was Margaret Cavendish, 150 years earlier. Mary Shelly’s novels are and have been more popular though.
  
  I'm going to have to read The Blazing World now. I'm surprised I haven't heard of it.
  Well, if you include Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World (1666), you would have to put Johannes Kepler's Somnium (1634) and Lucian of Samosata's A True Story (2nd century AD) ahead of her.
  I've listened to "A True Story" years ago but can't remember any of it. Reading the synopses, I think all three are closer to fantasy than Sci-Fi. So I still Put Frankenstein as the first true Sci-Fi book.

Agatha Christie is definitely one. Agree with Mary Shelley Robin Hobb
- Surprised I had to scroll this much to see her being mentioned.

Astrid Lindgren, her books are translated to 95 different languages and sold over 160 million copies. Probably the worlds most beloved children’s book author.

I don't have 'best female author of all time' but I do have favorite writers some of which happen to be female. I don't usually split them by their sex (nor by their height, distaste for bananas, or whatever) as for me they're all in the same 'people who have a great time staining paper with ink making me a happy reader' league but here it is, in absolutely no order beside the first two, as there is them and then there is all the others:
Virginia Woolf (the only reason I would love to be able to travel in time is to meet her),
Jane Austen,
Edit: (how could I forget) Emily Dickinson!
Sylvia Plath,
Shirley Jackson (if you have not already, go read The Haunting of Hill House, it's considered a classic for reasons),
la marquise de Sévigné (she wrote letters and they make for a great read, no idea if it's available in English),
Margaret Atwood (imho she deserves a Nobel Prize, next to Woolf and Austen),
Mary Shelley (like mentioned by others already, she well deserves to be read and would still have a lot to teach to some contemporary authors too, imho).
I love reading Lizza Tuttle. Her horror short stories are different.
In the same vein, I also quite like Mélanie Fazzi (who is also a translator of some of Tuttle's stories, btw). But I can't find that much more female writers in that specific genre (a lot more males do come to my mind).
Being French, I realize I have not listed that many French female writers I would consider a favorite. But they are a few I would consider excellent read nonetheless:
La comtesse de Ségur (one of my childhood companion next to, say, Verne and Doyle),
Simone de Beauvoir,
(very) few pages of Marguerite Duras,
Fred Vargas.
To which I would also add Pauline Réage, because I think her 'Histoire d'O' is well worth reading for anyone into erotica.
At one time, I also quite liked Joëlle Wintrebert (scifi) but I have not felt like reading her for a very long time so I could not tell.

Incorrect answer but I'm very excited every time she has a book, Mary Roach.
- I met her in person! She's super funny!!
  
  Lucky you! I am 0% surprised she's funny, that combination of smarts n funny is what makes her writing so goddamned good.

The only female author I am familiar enough with to have an opinion on is Anne McCaffrey because of the Dragon Riders of Pern series. Those are in my top 5 all time favorite series', tho. Above Goosebumps but below Neuromancer, LOTR, and Wheel of Time.
- I need to get around to trying the Pern books. My mom was a big fan and had all or nearly all of them.
  
  That's how I got into them, too! My mom had the entire series lol
- Her other series are great. Tower and the Hive, Acorna, and the Tales of the Barque Cats. One of my favorite authors.

Love N.K. Jemisin's books
- I saw her give a talk once. Someone asked her about the environment or climate change, and she said something like "There's like 100 people responsible for most of the problem, and we know where they live."
  The crowd loved this answer. The guy moderating the event made nervous noises.

No love for Robin Hobb?
- I love her, but maaaaan, I've been trying to slog through Ship Of Destiny for MONTHS and like, I just wanna be DONE with the ships and these characters and get back to Fitz and that side of the world. I know, I know, it all ties together, but I don't care, I'm so done with the pirate stuff.
  
  Keep at it! The end of Ship of Destiny ends up paying off. A lot of Hobb books have that kinda “slow burn” thing going where it feels like a slog til the last 30% of the final part of a trilogy and then it goes super hard
- Much, and lindholm

Probably Agatha Christie

Agree with all of the above, would add T. Kingfisher for fantasy, Iris Murdoch for heady philosophical fiction, Agatha Christie for murder mystery, Clarissa Pinkola Estés for empowering fables and explorations of feminine archetypes, Mary Oliver for poetry, and Lady Margaret Cavendish for a great sci-fi novel from 1666.

Le Guin

Agatha Christie. While not quite what I like there is no denying her success.

Marjane Satrapi
- Persepolis was intense but beautifully conveyed, full agree.

If you like Star Trek:
DC Fontana

Mary Ann Evans, who wrote as George Eliot. Middlemarch is imho one of the best novels ever written in the English language.

Poets are authors too, so I'm tossing mine in for Emily Dickinson

A lot of folk are giving great answers here.
I just want to add Andre Norton to the list. She was a pioneer in Sci-Fi and her fantasy work was great too.

I don't know about "of all time" but "The Coming Plague" by Laurie Garrett should be required reading.
https://www.lauriegarrett.com/the-coming-plague

I'm disappointed that no one has mentioned Lois McMaster Bujold yet.

Toni Morrison
Angela Carter
Virginia Wolfe
Shirley Jackson
Octavia Butler

Rosa Luxemburg: Great German socialist thinker and revolutionary
Emma Goldman: Lithuanian Jewish Anarchist and feminist thinker
Voltairine de Cleyre: American Anarchist and political thinker
Luisa Capetillo : Puerto Rican labor organizer and anarcha-feminist
- this list is based.

Nobody mentioned Margaret Atwood yet! The Handmaid's Tale is excellent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale
Also Mary Shelley for Frankenstein !
- It is a good book (I'm too much of a chicken to watch much of the show).
  It is very immersive and a difficult read, but masterful storytelling.
  I honestly think it should be required reading.
  
  I tried reading The Handmaid's Tale several years ago and struggled to get into it, I felt like it kept jumping around but it wasn't immediately obvious right away. I think I ended up giving up about 25% the way through which I've never done with any book. I'd seen the show too which I thought would have helped. Maybe I'll give it another go sometime.

I don't read books that often, so I don't know if she's necessarily the best but I'd have to say Cornelia Funke. Inkheart, while I have yet to actually finish it, is the only normal book that I remember actually liking. It's currently the only book I own a copy of that isn't a manga.
- I really liked her Dragon Rider as a kid

Tamsyn Muir comes to mind for her excellent locked tomb series
- This has been living rent-free in my head since I started reading it a month ago, and now I'm rereading it already.

Ann Leckie and Becky Chambers are definitely up there

Henriette Walter. Her works on French linguistics are both fascinating and informative.
Iris Murdoch. I've only read The Sea, The Sea, but it's one of the books that got me into literature when I was a teenager. I really need to get around to exploring more of her work.

Many great authors mentioned. I'll add: Marilynne Robinson is magic. Harper Lee. Zora Neale Hurston!!! I'll also add Charlotte Bronte bc Jane Eyre is such a great read.

On alive authors, I think Nina Allan and Niviaq Korneliussen are worth a try.

I'm voting for Julian May (yes, she was female). Her best series of books were the Saga of Pliocene Exile and the Galactic Milieu trilogy (in 4 parts).

I have no idea what this question is asking but I like Donna Tartt

Some people are about to lose their marbles but just going by the numbers: J. K. Rowling.
She authored the 4th best selling single book of all time and the best selling book series of all time, by quite the margin.
- I'd say that would be considered "most successful"
  "Best" is very subjective
  
  Sure, but when you asking about a specific profession, that seems the most obvious way to interpret that question.
  Unless OP just wants to find a nice female author to hang out with (in that case we should probably exclude all the dead ones).
  
  Best is always subjective when it comes to art, but I think she is squarely in the safe zone for wearing the label.
- Pfft. Rowling's sold an estimated 600-650 million books (22 titles). Agatha Christie sold an estimated 2-4 billion books (86 titles).
  
  now do a count per years of release and calculate how many jk rowling would sell if her books were out for the same amount of time?
  or is the bible the greatest piece of fiction ever?
  
  Interesting. I guess there is a lot of metrics and rules to apply to make a count. Still, she's like 2nd?
- Definitely one of the greats. Her characters have a life that is missing in quite a few of the other greats. Her world building and story telling are fantastic, especially considering she didn't do the kind of historic world building Tolkien engaged in before even telling his stories. J. K. Rowling definitely belongs on the list of great authors in general, not just great female authors.
  
  Is this bait or are you fr rn??? Quit glazing lmao, her works are mid at best and there's so many better authors (mentioned in this thread so you don't even have legitimate claim to ignorance) to whom you're doing a massive disservice by calling JKR "one of the greats."
  Bro really thinks twitter posts about how wizards didn't know about plumbing centuries after the technology existed and would instead shit on the floor is somehow "fantastic" worldbuilding lmfao 💀

Miles Franklin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Franklin

Off the top of my head Andre Norton is completely overlooked in this thread. Like… what?
Mercedes lackey.
Cj Cherryh.
Katherine Kurtz.

My first picks have already been mentioned, but I think these women have also been influential
Flannery O' Connor, Shirley Jackson, Emily Dickinson

A lot of greats have been mentioned already, so I’ll add Han Kang to the mix.

Ellen Booraem (YA, she's great at writing books from a totally different angle), Oyinkan Braithwaite (she's only written two books so far but they're great), Katharine Kerr.

In terms of books written for children, Gail Carson Levine is a good one. She is famous for Ella Enchanted (the book is very different from the film) and some other fairy tale books. She also wrote books for Disney in the Tinkerbell book series.

Tanith Lee, Mary Gentle, Melanie Rawn deserve mentions. (MZB I haven't been able to read since learning...) Anais Nin was mostly intentionally writing trash but is fun

metacommantary: "
Who is the best X of all time?"
All answers are about am*rican or british X.
This thread also made me realise that I do not read that many woman-writ books.
answer:
I enjoyed books by : Ursula K. Le Guin, JK Rowling, Patricia Ann McKillip, and Kathy Reichs.
- Does there really have to be a post complaining that English speaking countries are over represented on every post like this that is in English?
  
  I'm sorry. That's a thorn in my ass I guess.
- All answers are about am*rican or british X.
  Maybe you have not read my answer?
  
  you are probably right
- Post the same question in a comm that uses another language that you speak and see what answers you get there.

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