Although the Victorians were awash in texts, the Bible was such a pervasive and dominant presence that they may fittingly be thought of as 'a people of one book'. They habitually read the Bible, quoted it, adopted its phraseology as their own, thought in its categories, and viewed their own lives and experiences through a scriptural lens. This astonishingly deep, relentless, and resonant engagement with the Bible was true across the religious spectrum from Catholics to Unitarians and beyond. The scripture-saturated culture of nineteenth-century England is displayed by Timothy Larsen in a series of lively case studies of representative figures ranging from the Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry to the liberal Anglican pioneer of nursing Florence Nightingale to the Baptist preacher C. H. Spurgeon to the Jewish author Grace Aguilar. Even the agnostic man of science T. H. Huxley and the atheist leaders Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant were thoroughly and profoundly preoccupied with the Bible. Serving as a tour of the diversity and variety of nineteenth-century views, Larsen's study presents the distinctive beliefs and practices of all the major Victorian religious and sceptical traditions from Anglo-Catholics to the Salvation Army to Spiritualism, while simultaneously drawing out their common, shared culture as a people of one book.

Over the course of her 57-year career, Augusta Jane Evans Wilson published nine best-selling novels, but her significant contributions to American literature have until recently gone largely unrecognized. Brenda Ayres, in her long overdue critical biography of the novelist once referred to as the 'first Southern woman to enter the field of American letters,' credits the importance of Wilson's novels for their portrait of nineteenth-century America. As Ayres reminds us, the nineteenth-century American book market was dominated by women writers and women readers, a fact still to some extent obscured by the make-up of the literary canon. In placing Wilson's novels firmly within their historical context, Ayres commemorates Wilson as both a storyteller and maker of American history. Proceeding chronologically, Ayres devotes a chapter to each of Wilson's novels, showing how her views on Catholicism, the South, the Civil War, male authority, domesticity, Reconstruction, and race were both informed by and resistant to the turbulent times in which she lived. This comprehensive and meticulously researched biography contributes not only to our appreciation of Wilson's work, but also to her importance as a figure for understanding women's roles in history and their art, evolving gender roles, and the complicated status of women writers.

The groundbreaking volume The Torah: A Women's Commentary, originally published by URJ Press and Women of Reform Judaism, has been awarded the top prize in the oldest Jewish literary award program, the 2008 National Jewish Book Awards. A work of great import, the volume is the result of 14 years of planning, research, and fundraising. THE HISTORY: At the 39th Women of Reform Judaism Assembly in San Francisco, Cantor Sarah Sager challenged Women of Reform Judaism delegates to "imagine women feeling permitted, for the first time, feeling able, feeling legitimate in their study of Torah." WRJ accepted that challenge. The Torah: A Women's Commentary was introduced at the Union for Reform Judaism 69th Biennial Convention in San Diego in December 2007. WRJ has commissioned the work of the world's leading Jewish female Bible scholars, rabbis, historians, philosophers and archaeologists. Their collective efforts resulted in the first comprehensive commentary, authored only by women, on the Five Books of Moses, including individual Torah portions as well as the Hebrew and English translation. The Torah: A Women's Commentary gives dimension to the women's voices in our tradition. Under the skillful leadership of editors Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea Weiss, PhD, this commentary provides insight and inspiration for all who study Torah: men and women, Jew and non-Jew. As Dr. Eskenazi has eloquently stated, "we want to bring the women of the Torah from the shadow into the limelight, from their silences into speech, from the margins to which they have often been relegated to the center of the page - for their sake, for our sake and for our children's sake." Published by CCAR Press, a division of the Central Conference of American Rabbis

Many readers are convinced that the Psalms are hopelessly “masculine,” especially given that seventy-three of the 150 psalms begin with headings linking them to King David. In this volume, Denise Dombkowski Hopkins sets stories about women in the Hebrew Bible alongside Psalms 42–89 as “intertexts” for interpretation. The stories of women such as Hannah, Rahab, Tamar, Bathsheba, Susanna, Judith, Shiphrah, Puah, and the Levite’s concubine can generate a different set of associations for psalm metaphors than have traditionally been put forward. These different associations can give the reader different views of the dynamics of power, gender, politics, religion, family, and economics in ancient Israel and in our lives today that might help to name and transform the brokenness of our world. From the Wisdom Commentary series Feminist biblical interpretation has reached a level of maturity that now makes possible a commentary series on every book of the Bible. It is our hope that Wisdom Commentary, by making the best of current feminist biblical scholarship available in an accessible format to ministers, preachers, teachers, scholars, and students, will aid all readers in their advancement toward God’s vision of dignity, equality, and justice for all. The aim of this commentary is to provide feminist interpretation of Scripture in serious, scholarly engagement with the whole text, not only those texts that explicitly mention women. A central concern is the world in front of the text, that is, how the text is heard and appropriated by women. At the same time, this commentary aims to be faithful to the ancient text, to explicate the world behind the text, where appropriate, and not impose contemporary questions onto the ancient texts. The commentary addresses not only issues of gender (which are primary in this project) but also those of power, authority, ethnicity, racism, and classism, which all intersect. Each volume incorporates diverse voices and differing interpretations from different parts of the world, showing the importance of social location in the process of interpretation and that there is no single definitive feminist interpretation of a text.

In this close reading of Psalms 90-150, Nancy L. deClaissé-Walford discovers meanings in the Psalms that were "there all along" but hidden beneath layers of interpretation built up over the centuries. Approaching the canonical storyline of the Psalter with feminist-critical lenses, she reads against the dominant mind-set, refuses to accept the givens, and seeks to uncover a hidden/alternate/parallel set of societal norms. DeClaissé-Walford attends to how context affects the way hearers appropriate the Psalter's words: women, for the most part, hear differently than men; women of privilege differently than women living in poverty. Her interchanges with students and scholars in post-apartheid South Africa bring the biblical text alive in new ways for today's believers.

Some of the greatest English novels were written during the Victorian era, and many are still widely read and taught today. But many others written during that period have been neglected by scholars and modern readers alike. A number of these novels were written by women and were popular when published. Moreover, they reveal perspectives of 19th-century British culture not present in canonized works and therefore revise our understanding of Victorian life and attitudes. With the increasing interest in revising Victorian history and gender scholarship, especially through the rediscovery of lost texts written by women, this book is a timely and much needed study. The expert contributors to this volume argue the value of novels by such Victorian women writers as Grace Aguilar, Catherine Crowe, Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, Annie E. Holdsworth, Ella Hepworth Dixon, Flora Annie Steel, Anne Thackeray, Sarah Grand, Marie Corelli, and others. Most of the chapters address numerous works by a particular writer. Each focuses on different social issues as well, though most of them share an interest in gender politics. Topics discussed include a 19th-century Jewish novelist's navigation through Protestant spirituality, the relationship of noncanonical governess novels to class and gender issues, and forgotten works by women crime writers. Other chapters analyze how women writers impelled social reform and subverted patriarchally defined religious issues.