Who are the best female authors of all time?

Ursula le Guin is a great SF writer

Ursula K LeGuin?

That's what first popped into my head and ofc it is the top answer hah
/thread
Sorry, but read "Walk To The end Of The World" by Suzy McKee Charnas,

In terms of books written for children, Gail Carson Levine is a good one. She is famous for Ella Enchanted (the book is very different from the film) and some other fairy tale books. She also wrote books for Disney in the Tinkerbell book series.

Fiction

Ursula K. LeGuin
Octavia Butler
Margaret Atwood
Tui T. Sutherland (J Fic)
Suzanne Collins (YA)
Lois Lowry (YA)

Non-Fiction

Naomi Klein
Margaret Atwood (Massey Lecture)
Angela Y. Davis
Tanya Talaga
bell hooks
Robin Wall Kimmerer

Astrid Lindgren, her books are translated to 95 different languages and sold over 160 million copies. Probably the worlds most beloved children’s book author.

Probably Agatha Christie

Obviously, Mary Shelley. Created the most famous character of all time and the entire genre of science fiction while still a teenager.

I'm a fan of Tanith Lee. She started weird fantasy and Neil Gaiman stole all his best ideas and most of his writing style from her.

Karen Slaughter writes detective novels that make Jack Reacher look like a school boy.

Tana French is Slaughter's Irsih cousin.

Joanna Russ was an out Lesbian back in the 1970s. "The Female Man" is still cutting edge.

I'm curious about your Lee/gaiman idea. I can't see it at all and Don't Bite the Sun is my fav ever.
- In "Death's Master" the Demon Prince refers to the Lord of Delusions as "uncousin."
  In the 'Sandman' comics there are a lot of little cut-away stories, just like the tale of the teardrop necklace in "Night's Master."

No love for Jane Austen? Some of her works are all time classic. They could probably compete with top 10 literature work of 17th-18th century.

Another author that's under appreciated would be Gertrude Stein.

Yeah, Jane Austen's easily one of the top 20 English novelists of all time, and one of my personal favorites. She gets kind of a mixed appreciation these days bc the movies made from her novels usually focus on the romance (often in a way that would have scandalized her) and skimp on her commentary about human nature and society's pressures. And plus her prose is just gorgeous and that is difficult to adapt to film. Probably the best adaptation is the BBC 1980 Pride and Prejudice miniseries ( wikipedia , tubi ) which was adapted by Fay Weldon, who was a novelist in her own right. That miniseries turns a lot of Austen's prose into dialogue, which is beautiful to hear in that context, though as a consequence the series is a little slow for a wide modern audience. Really you have to read the books themselves.
- She's also incredibly funny (and sometimes savage) which also gets lost in many adaptations, since it's in her commentary and not necessarily in the dialog.
  She was not a woman of many words; for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the number of her ideas.

I don't have 'best female author of all time' but I do have favorite writers some of which happen to be female. I don't usually split them by their sex (nor by their height, distaste for bananas, or whatever) as for me they're all in the same 'people who have a great time staining paper with ink making me a happy reader' league but here it is, in absolutely no order beside the first two, as there is them and then there is all the others:

Virginia Woolf (the only reason I would love to be able to travel in time is to meet her),
Jane Austen,
Edit: (how could I forget) Emily Dickinson!
Sylvia Plath,
Shirley Jackson (if you have not already, go read The Haunting of Hill House, it's considered a classic for reasons),
la marquise de Sévigné (she wrote letters and they make for a great read, no idea if it's available in English),
Margaret Atwood (imho she deserves a Nobel Prize, next to Woolf and Austen),
Mary Shelley (like mentioned by others already, she well deserves to be read and would still have a lot to teach to some contemporary authors too, imho).
I love reading Lizza Tuttle. Her horror short stories are different.
In the same vein, I also quite like Mélanie Fazzi (who is also a translator of some of Tuttle's stories, btw). But I can't find that much more female writers in that specific genre (a lot more males do come to my mind).

Being French, I realize I have not listed that many French female writers I would consider a favorite. But they are a few I would consider excellent read nonetheless:

La comtesse de Ségur (one of my childhood companion next to, say, Verne and Doyle),
Simone de Beauvoir,
(very) few pages of Marguerite Duras,
Fred Vargas.
To which I would also add Pauline Réage, because I think her 'Histoire d'O' is well worth reading for anyone into erotica.
At one time, I also quite liked Joëlle Wintrebert (scifi) but I have not felt like reading her for a very long time so I could not tell.

Ursula LeGuin

Margaret Atwood

Diana Wynne Jones

and for personal preference, Robin McKinley

Agatha Christie is definitely one. Agree with Mary Shelley Robin Hobb

Surprised I had to scroll this much to see her being mentioned.

Incorrect answer but I'm very excited every time she has a book, Mary Roach.

I met her in person! She's super funny!!
- Lucky you! I am 0% surprised she's funny, that combination of smarts n funny is what makes her writing so goddamned good.

I don't read books that often, so I don't know if she's necessarily the best but I'd have to say Cornelia Funke. Inkheart, while I have yet to actually finish it, is the only normal book that I remember actually liking. It's currently the only book I own a copy of that isn't a manga.

I really liked her Dragon Rider as a kid

No love for Robin Hobb?

I love her, but maaaaan, I've been trying to slog through Ship Of Destiny for MONTHS and like, I just wanna be DONE with the ships and these characters and get back to Fitz and that side of the world. I know, I know, it all ties together, but I don't care, I'm so done with the pirate stuff.
- Keep at it! The end of Ship of Destiny ends up paying off. A lot of Hobb books have that kinda “slow burn” thing going where it feels like a slog til the last 30% of the final part of a trilogy and then it goes super hard
Much, and lindholm

On alive authors, I think Nina Allan and Niviaq Korneliussen are worth a try.

Love N.K. Jemisin's books

I saw her give a talk once. Someone asked her about the environment or climate change, and she said something like "There's like 100 people responsible for most of the problem, and we know where they live."
The crowd loved this answer. The guy moderating the event made nervous noises.

Agatha Christie. While not quite what I like there is no denying her success.

Some people are about to lose their marbles but just going by the numbers: J. K. Rowling.

She authored the 4th best selling single book of all time and the best selling book series of all time, by quite the margin.

I'd say that would be considered "most successful"
"Best" is very subjective
- Sure, but when you asking about a specific profession, that seems the most obvious way to interpret that question.
  Unless OP just wants to find a nice female author to hang out with (in that case we should probably exclude all the dead ones).
Pfft. Rowling's sold an estimated 600-650 million books (22 titles). Agatha Christie sold an estimated 2-4 billion books (86 titles).
- now do a count per years of release and calculate how many jk rowling would sell if her books were out for the same amount of time?
  or is the bible the greatest piece of fiction ever?
- Interesting. I guess there is a lot of metrics and rules to apply to make a count. Still, she's like 2nd?

Agree with all of the above, would add T. Kingfisher for fantasy, Iris Murdoch for heady philosophical fiction, Agatha Christie for murder mystery, Clarissa Pinkola Estés for empowering fables and explorations of feminine archetypes, Mary Oliver for poetry, and Lady Margaret Cavendish for a great sci-fi novel from 1666.

Rosa Luxemburg: Great German socialist thinker and revolutionary
Emma Goldman: Lithuanian Jewish Anarchist and feminist thinker
Voltairine de Cleyre: American Anarchist and political thinker
Luisa Capetillo : Puerto Rican labor organizer and anarcha-feminist

Poets are authors too, so I'm tossing mine in for Emily Dickinson

If you like Star Trek:

DC Fontana

Le Guin

Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis was intense but beautifully conveyed, full agree.

Many great authors mentioned. I'll add: Marilynne Robinson is magic. Harper Lee. Zora Neale Hurston!!! I'll also add Charlotte Bronte bc Jane Eyre is such a great read.

A lot of folk are giving great answers here.

I just want to add Andre Norton to the list. She was a pioneer in Sci-Fi and her fantasy work was great too.

Mary Ann Evans, who wrote as George Eliot. Middlemarch is imho one of the best novels ever written in the English language.

Toni Morrison

Angela Carter

Virginia Wolfe

Shirley Jackson

Octavia Butler

My first picks have already been mentioned, but I think these women have also been influential

Flannery O' Connor, Shirley Jackson, Emily Dickinson

Off the top of my head Andre Norton is completely overlooked in this thread. Like… what?

Mercedes lackey.

Cj Cherryh.

Katherine Kurtz.

I'm disappointed that no one has mentioned Lois McMaster Bujold yet.

Tamsyn Muir comes to mind for her excellent locked tomb series

This has been living rent-free in my head since I started reading it a month ago, and now I'm rereading it already.

Ann Leckie and Becky Chambers are definitely up there

Miles Franklin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Franklin

Henriette Walter. Her works on French linguistics are both fascinating and informative.

Iris Murdoch. I've only read The Sea, The Sea, but it's one of the books that got me into literature when I was a teenager. I really need to get around to exploring more of her work.

metacommantary: "

Who is the best X of all time?"

All answers are about am*rican or british X.

This thread also made me realise that I do not read that many woman-writ books.

answer:

I enjoyed books by : Ursula K. Le Guin, JK Rowling, Patricia Ann McKillip, and Kathy Reichs.

Does there really have to be a post complaining that English speaking countries are over represented on every post like this that is in English?
- I'm sorry. That's a thorn in my ass I guess.
All answers are about am*rican or british X.
Maybe you have not read my answer?
- you are probably right
Post the same question in a comm that uses another language that you speak and see what answers you get there.

I have no idea what this question is asking but I like Donna Tartt

A lot of greats have been mentioned already, so I’ll add Han Kang to the mix.

Tanith Lee, Mary Gentle, Melanie Rawn deserve mentions. (MZB I haven't been able to read since learning...) Anais Nin was mostly intentionally writing trash but is fun

Ellen Booraem (YA, she's great at writing books from a totally different angle), Oyinkan Braithwaite (she's only written two books so far but they're great), Katharine Kerr.