ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the unearthing of new sources of new texts and the continued endeavour to contextualize women's work remains crucial if the discipline is to flourish. It argues that broadening that source base to include, among others, minor texts written by minor literary figures, adds to the depth of one's understanding of the period, and of women's literary activity in general. The majority of eighteenth-century playwrights, both women and men, were far from inhibited by high aesthetic standards, and their works were more diverse than scholarship allowed. Women's position in the business of literature was in fact determined by some factors: the increase in readers, and the emergence of a literary market diverse enough to include both the demanding aesthetic of Weimar Classicism and the popular entertainments of romantic fiction. The historical literary market is always much more diverse than the filtered-down, edited-out version of the literary market dealt with by literary scholars.
