This title was first published in 2001. This work focuses upon women who have not merely produced comic texts, but used their comedies to examine laughter itself as a problematic issue. Whether to embrace laughter wholeheartedly, whether to do so in a cautious and limited manner, or whether to forswear it entirely - women's opinions have seldom been in accord on one answer. For women writers of the 20th century laughter has been something to be weighed...