Ellen Moers Biography

American literary critic, born in New York, educated at Columbia University, Radcliffe, and Vassar. She taught at the University of Connecticut and the CUNY Graduate School. Like Elaine Showalter, Moers was important in founding Anglo-American feminist critical practice (see feminist criticism). Literary Women (1976) provides an illuminating literary history of women's writing; in this expansive and highly individual work Moers speculates upon common concerns, literary influences, and female expectations of American and European women writers. She was also author of the critical works The Dandy: Brummel to Beerbohm (1960) and Two Dreisers (1969), as well as a contributor to numerous journals and magazines, including The New York Review of Books and Harper's.