"From the writings of established favorites Mary Shelly, Sylvia Plath, Alice Munro, and Maya Angelou to the critically acclaimed, though lesser known, short fiction of Mary Lavin, from Eudora Welty's classic story "A Worn Path" to Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize speech, here is a mosaic of the finest literature from female writers past and present. Their collective voices span centuries, countries, and sensibilities, and together represent simply the best in women's writing."--BOOK JACKET.