ABSTRACT
In her very useful brief introduction to the current state of criticism, TAYLOR outlines the problems involved in understanding romance fiction’s enormous appeal for women readers. She argues that feminist criticism must acknowledge the complexity of both genre and readership, citing the “sexy-greedy” novels of Barbara Taylor Bradford as indicative of how the genre responded to the Thatcherite 1980s in Britain. Where the formula romance focuses on private experience, Taylor looks to the family saga for a historically determined sense of change and development, using her own work on Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind to indicate the need for more research into readership. Like other critics of the genre, Taylor is very aware of questions not yet answered.
