Introduction Elaine Showalter’s essay “Twenty Years On: A Literature of Their Own Revisited” is a retrospective reflection on her influential feminist literary history A Literature of Their Own, published in 1977. In this essay, Showalter examines how feminist literary criticism emerged, how her work contributed to its foundations, and how it has been debated, criticized, revised, and expanded over two decades. The essay is both autobiographical and critical, tracing the intellectual history of feminist criticism alongside her own scholarly journey. For students, this essay is important because it explains why women’s writing was excluded from the canon and how feminist criticism reshaped literary studies. Academic Climate Before Feminist Criticism Showalter begins by recalling the academic atmosphere of the 1960s, when feminist criticism did not exist as a recognized field. Women writers were largely absent from university syllabi, literary histories, and critical discussions. ...