New York: Delacorte, (1978.) dj. Hardcover first edition - An important book on how circumstances obstruct or silence creativity in women - based both on her own experiences as a writer and on letters and diaries of many other writers, not just women - including Thomas Hardy, Hopkins, Willa Cather, Melville, Blake, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and numerous others. Also contains a long essay on Rebecca Harding Davis, and an excerpt from her book 'Life in the Iron Mills.' In discussing her own life, Olsen comments that it was no accident that the first piece of work she considered publishable began 'As I Stand Ironing.' Subject and name indexes. xiv, 306 pp. ISBN: 0-440079004.