This bibliography lists all books published in English between 1830 and 1950 that present three or more women's biographies in some narrative detail, as well as many before and after these dates: approximately 1200 items. Although collections of women’s lives often appeared in periodicals, reference works, or series of monographs, such sources are generally excluded. We do list a few exceptions: a book featuring men as well as women; a work of poetry, drama, lectures or essays, even historical fiction; a few early or specialized encyclopedias or histories; some self-help. Each of these exceptions has been admitted for a reason: perhaps the history, poem, pageant, or advice book features a series of named women; perhaps the work affirms a new constituency (e.g. a "Who's Who" of the women of a region or organization); a collection of men with women may have been produced by someone who also contributed to the CBW genre; or in some way the work closely relates to other items in the bibliography. We indicate such relevant but formally divergent works with the shorthand "NOT" followed by a short identification of the format or genre of the item.

What is the historical scope of the project? The bibliography began with a complete list of all prosopographies of women published in English 1830-1940, with a selective list before 1830. The production of female prospopography increased in the 1830s and boomed by the later nineteenth century. Rates of publication increased after World War II, and especially with the second wave of the feminist movement. The exhaustive bibliography originally ended at 1940 for that reason. More recently, the list is as complete as possible through 1950, with plans to round out the listings of later decades. The project is international (largely transatlantic) because these publications often were reprinted or imitated in Britain and the United States; because many European and North American women were internationally celebrated and some lectured or campaigned abroad; and because the discourse of women's education, social progress, and cultural achievement was shared in various colonies and former colonies of the British Empire. Spanning the centuries of this genre helps us reveal fascinating trends in the models for women and in representation of various careers and individuals. Women who stood out in the nineteenth-century panorama fell behind the scenes in the new era and were supplanted by more recent counterparts.

English-language but not just British and American. The concept of a biographical collection of the commendable women of a country arises in ancient Rome and China, Germany and France, and other literate and historical contexts. Boccaccio and Chaucer gave it a try in their new vernaculars. Especially before 1800, female prosopographies printed in Britain might be translations or adaptations of European works. It seems that the largest number of female prosopographies were produced in English, some in Australia, India, Canada, or other nineteenth-century reaches of the British Empire, but most in London, Edinburgh, and various publishing centers in the United States.

The main bibliography 1830-1940 is alphabetical by author rather than chronological in part to serve those who are interested in the presenters, but primarily because of the extraordinary fluidity of these publications: the same collection often was reprinted many times, republished under different titles, or partly lifted into other collections.

Before and after the main bibliography are selective lists: first, a chronological selection of female prosopographies in earlier centuries, and second, an alphabetical selection of books collecting women's lives published from 1941 through the present. These separate selective bibliographies may be brought up from the "Earlier and Later Examples" tab on the Browse page and are integrated in any searches. Various collections published after 1940 first appeared before that date, and their entries appear in the main list.

Anonymous publications are alphabetized by title unless authorship is known; pseudonymous works are listed under the pseudonym.

In the main bibliography, the publication data includes the date of every known edition or reprint, though we have not attempted complete histories of each work. Where Alison Booth examined a specific edition in either the Bodleian or the British Library, this is indicated immediately following the publication date of that edition. In some instances entries will refer to information derived from the two other related bibliographies, both less complete than CBW by design (Oldfield's selective British list) or the limited resources of the 1930s (Riches): Oldfield, Collective Biography of Women in Britain, 1550-1900 (London: Mansell, 1999)= "Oldfield"; Phyllis M. Riches, An Analytical Bibliography of Universal Collected Biography, Comprising Books Published in the English Tongue in Great Britain and Ireland, America, and the British Dominions (London: The Library Association, 1934)= "Riches."

Annotations—in progress—may identify other works by the author; provide if possible the table of contents or list of subjects; describe contents; or draw links to interrelated works. Where an item is discussed in How to Make It as a Woman, the entry includes page references.

Entries marked See also Pop Chart are unspecialized or eclectic collections that contribute to the "Pop Chart" of subjects. Subject names were compiled from 44 books 1850-1870, 67 books 1880-1900, and 57 books 1910-1930. Generally to be included in the chart a person must have appeared a total of five times or more over more than one period, the purpose being to measure rate of appearance in books that have no stated principle of exclusion. The three periods were chosen to give a broad sense of change in the history as well as the representation of types and individuals of women. It may not go without saying that the rates do not count all the times that a subject appears in the entire archive of all-female collections in these periods, and that some of these women also appear in mixed-gender prosopographies or have monographs of their own.

Additions: As we expand and enhance the bibliography, we wish to retain its correspondence with entries in the printed version of 2004. Where an entirely new publication is inserted in the alphabetical lists, it is marked by a capital letter (e.g. 762A, 762B and so on), to avoid changing or confusing item numbers discussed in How to Make It as a Woman.