Ths introduction provides a brief biography of Norman Mailer, addressing his upbringing, his education, his family life, his marriages, his rise to fame as a writer and cultural critic, his political activism and involvement, his honors and awards, and the controversies that swirled around his public and personal life.

Drawing on new archival research into book history, letters and periodical literature, this chapter explores the critical narratives around what it meant to be a woman writer between 1830 and 1880 via a focus on case studies of two Irish woman writers: Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849) and Mrs S. C. Hall (1800–1881). This focused approach allows a comprehensive placing of Irish women writers within the developing literary marketplace of their time and consideration of the extent to which the contemporary critical reception of their work has shaped subsequent scholarship. In doing so, the chapter uncovers a narrative of peaks and troughs, epitomised by periods of great esteem and critical disdain, and highlights the fluctuating patterns of visibility and invisibility of literary productions in the nineteenth century and beyond.