WThe Biographies of Exemplary Women is a book compiled by the Han dynasty scholar Liu Xiang c. 18 BCE. It includes 125 biographical accounts of exemplary women in ancient China, taken from early Chinese histories including Chunqiu, Zuozhuan, and the Records of the Grand Historian. The book served as a standard Confucianist textbook for the moral education of women in traditional China for two millennia.
WThe Book of the City of Ladies or Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, is perhaps Christine de Pizan's most famous literary work, and it is her second work of lengthy prose. Pizan uses the vernacular French language to compose the book, but she often uses Latin-style syntax and conventions within her French prose. The book serves as her formal response to Jean de Meun's popular Roman de la Rose. Pizan combats Meun's statements about women by creating an allegorical city of ladies. She defends women by collecting a wide array of famous women throughout history. These women are "housed" in the City of Ladies, which is actually the book. As Pizan builds her city, she uses each famous woman as a building block for not only the walls and houses of the city, but also as building blocks for her thesis. Each woman added to the city adds to Pizan's argument towards women as valued participants in society. She also advocates in favour of education for women.
WDe Mulieribus Claris or De Claris Mulieribus is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in 1361–62. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature. At the same time as he was writing On Famous Women, Boccaccio also compiled a collection of biographies of famous men, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium.
WDictionary of Women Artists is a two-volume dictionary of 600 women artists born before 1945, going back to the Middle Ages. It was edited by Delia Gaze with 23 advisors and over 100 contributors. Gaze is a writer for the Oxford DNB and wrote several biographies that were released in the 2004 edition of the ODNB.
WEnglish Female Artists, in two volumes, assembled and edited by Ellen Creathorne Clayton, lists an overview of prominent English women painters up to 1876, the year of publication.
WGreat Women Masters of Art is a 2003 reference work assembled and edited by the art historian Jordi Vigué, on women painters through the ages.
WThe International Encyclopedia of Women Composers is a 1981 reference book by Aaron I. Cohen which contains biographies of over 5,000 women composers from nearly 70 countries. It was put together when Cohen was retired in order to help fill a gap in the history of music. Two editions were published and the second edition consists of two volumes.
WSvenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon (SKBL), known in English as Biographical Dictionary of Swedish Women, is a Swedish biographical dictionary of Swedish women. It was started in 2018 when 1,000 articles about Swedish women were published in Swedish and English. There are plans to publish a further 1,000 articles in 2020 about women who have actively contributed to Swedish society. This activity has been financed by Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation..
WA Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred Seventy Biographical Sketches, Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women, in all Walks of Life is a compendium of biographical sketches of American women. It was published in 1893 by Charles Wells Moulton. The editors, Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore, were assisted by a group of contributors.
WWomen Painters of the World, from the time of Caterina Vigri, 1413–1463, to Rosa Bonheur and the present day, assembled and edited by Walter Shaw Sparrow, lists an overview of prominent women painters up to 1905, the year of publication.