In 1929 Virginia Woolf articulated one part of the feminist historical project: 'We think back through our mothers if we are women' (A Room of One's Own, Hogarth Press, 1929). By 'mothers', it becomes clear, she meant mould-breaking foremothers. But where do we find such mothers? And who were the mould-breaking forerunners to whom they looked back, and the mould-breakers before them?This annotated bibliography of 365 entries cites collective biographies which contain entries on women. It includes publications from the Middle Ages to the end of the nineteenth century, and provides both an important contribution to British historiography of the period, and an aid and stimulus to further research into women's history.Arranged chronologically, the bibliography covers encyclopedic collections of 'great lives', both male and female; collections of heterogeneous women-only biography; and collective biographies of particular categories of women - saints, martyrs, actresses, felons, writers, artists, missionaries, etc. Annotations focus on the individual women included in the works cited, and the ways in which they are represented by biographers and compilers, who were usually men. The chronological arrangement allows a progressive history of women - and attitudes towards women - in Britain to emerge.There are extensive name and category indexes, and 44 black and white portraits of some of the women featured in the works cited.1999 o 188 pages o 44 b/w illus o Hardback o 0 7201 2321 6 o �65.00