Themis-Athena's Garden of Books

.. including a selection of first hand accounts and primary historical source texts.

Cross-references to my other topical lists are marked with the addition "cf."

* Antonia Fraser: all books

(women's history, Tudors & Stuarts -- cf. list no. 1, "Bulk Entries and Basics")

* Joyce A. Tyldesley: Daughters of Isis: Women of Ancient Egypt

(Ancient Egypt)

* Various Authors: Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts

(Middle Ages)

* Barbara Beuys: Denn ich bin krank vor Liebe: Das Leben der Hildegard von Bingen  

(Biography of Hildegard of Bingen; to the best of my knowledge, not translated into English.)

(Middle Ages, Germany)

* Helen Castor: She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth

(Middle Ages, England -- cf. list no. 4, "History of the British Isles")
* Alison Weir: Eleanor of Aquitaine

(Middle Ages, France and England)

* Christine de Pizan: La cité des dames (The City of the Ladies), Le débat sur le roman de la rose (The Debate on the Romance of the Rose), and Le ditié de Jéhanne d'Arc (poetic tribute to Jeanne d'Arc)

(Middle Ages, France)
* Moderata Fonte: The Worth of Women

(Renaissance Italy)
* David Starkey: Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, and Elizabeth

(Tudor Age -- cf. list no. 4, "History of the British Isles")
* Elizabeth Tudor, Leah Marcus (ed.): Collected Works

(Tudor Age -- cf. list no. 4, "History of the British Isles")

* Mary S. Lovell: Bess of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth, 1527-1608

(Tudor Age -- cf. list no. 4, "History of the British Isles")
* Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: La Respuesta (The Answer)

(17th century Mexico)

* Robert K. Massie: Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

* Wendy Moore: Wedlock: How Georgian Britain's Worst Husband Met His Match

  -- cf. list no. 4, "History of the British Isles"

* Stefan Zweig: Marie Antoinette

(18th century France)

* George Sand: Histoire de ma vie (The Story of My Life), and André Maurois: Lélia, ou la vie de George Sand (Lelia: The Life of George Sand)

(19th century France -- for Sand's autobiography, cf. list no. 3, "First Hand Accounts")
* Hannah Arendt: Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman, and Carola Stern: Der Text meines Herzens

(Two excellent biographies of Varnhagen.  English speakers will have to make do with Arendt's books, but I confess my first love is still Carola Stern's engaging version, which I read first (and whose title translates as "The text of my heart")).

(18th/19th century Germany)

* Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

(18th century Britain -- cf. list no. 4, "History of the British Isles")

* Jane Austen: The History of England, and Claire Tomalin: Jane Austen: A Life

(Austen's own, just for the fun of it: Austen was 13 when she wrote this, and it says more about her 13 year old self than about the English kings she's portraying.)

(19th century Britain -- cf. list no. 4, "History of the British Isles")

* Elizabeth Gaskell: The Life of Charlotte Brontë

(19th century Britain -- cf. list no. 4, "History of the British Isles")

* Alexandra Lapierre: Fanny Stevenson: A Romance of Destiny

(19th / early 20th century U.S. and Britain)

* Helen Keller: The Story of My Life

(late 19th / 20th century U.S., disability -- cf. list no. 3, "First Hand Accounts")

* Teffi: Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea

(Russian revolution -- cf. list no. 3, "First Hand Accounts")

* Alexandra David-Neel: Voyage d'une Parisienne à Lhassa (My Journey to Lhasa)

(early 20th century, Tibet / Himalayas / exploration -- cf. lists no. 3 & 8, "First Hand Accounts" and "At Home and Abroad")

* Virginia Woolf: A Room of One's Own

(early 20th century Britain; literary history)

* Dorothy L. Sayers: Are Women Human?, The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: 1899-1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist, and Barbara Reynolds: Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul

(early 20th century Britain, mysteries and crime fiction -- cf. lists nos. 3 & 7, "First Hand Accounts" and "Literary and Cultural History")

* Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

(20th century Britain, mysteries and crime fiction -- cf. lists nos. 3 & 7, "First Hand Accounts" and "Literary and Cultural History")

* Beryl Markham: West With the Night

(20th century British Kenya; aviation -- cf. list no. 3, "First Hand Accounts")

* Anne Frank: Diary

(WWII / Nazi Germany -- cf. lists nos. 3 & 5, "First Hand Accounts" and "WWII / National Socialism")

* Erica Fischer: Aimée und Jaguar: Ein Liebesgeschichte, Berlin 1943 (Aimée & Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943)

-- cf. list no. 5, "WWII / National Socialism"

* Jennifer Worth: Call the Midwife

(Post-WWII Britain -- cf. list no. 3, "First Hand Accounts")

@Chris: This is a bit more than 25 books, but there is a certain amount of overlap between my various topical lists, and I'd prefer to list books under all topics that seem relevant to me, so as to give you the option to list them as you think best fits in turn.