Romance Scholarship

A bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.

Items with the "**" have not been personally checked. This means that the details given in the entry may not be entirely accurate.

Dissertation Abstracts are listed separately, as are items in languages other than English.

For romance-related resources which may be of interest to academics see the Romance Resources for Academics page.

For items written about romance by romance authors but not published in academic journals or books see the Writers on Romance page.

For news items/features items about romance see the Romance in the Media page.

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Alberts, J. K., 1986. 

‘The role of couples' conversations in relationship development: A content analysis of courtship talk in Harlequin romance novels’, Communication Quarterly, 34: 127-142. **

Anderson, Rachel, 1974. 

The Purple Heart Throbs: The Sub-literature of Love (London: Hodder and Stoughton).

Ang, Ien, 1996. 

Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World (London & New York: Routledge). [Chapter 6 is titled 'Feminist Desire and Female Pleasure: On Janice Radway's Reading the Romance']

Aronowitz, Beverly-Lynne, 1988. 

'Women's Fiction and Popular Romance: Student Audience and Teaching Dilemma', Paper presented at the Annual National Literature Conference (3rd, Chicago, IL, October 14-15, 1988). 32 pgs. ERIC document ED298525.

Assiter, Alison, 1988. 

‘Romance Fiction, Porn for Women?’, in Perspectives on Pornography: Sexuality in Film and Literature, ed. Gary Day & Clive Bloom (New York: St. Martin’s), pp. 101-112.**

Barrett, Rebecca Kaye, 2003. 

‘Higher Love: What Women Gain from Christian Romance Novels’, Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 4. [1]

Belsey, Catherine, 1993. 

'Writing About Desire', The Glasgow Review, 2. [2]

Beidler, Peter G., 1991. 

'The Contemporary Indian Romance: A Review Essay', American Indian Culture and Research Journal , 15.4:97-125.

Blake, Susan L., 2003. 

'What "Race" is the Sheik?: Rereading a Desert Romance', in Doubled Plots: Romance and History, see below, pp. 67-85. **

Bott, Amber, 1999. 

'Cavewoman Impulses: The Jungian Shadow Archetype in Popular Romantic Fiction', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 62-74. **

Brackett, Kim Pettigrew, 2000. 

"Facework Strategies Among Romance Fiction Readers", The Social Science Journal, 37.3: 347-60.

Breslin, Carol Ann, 1999. 

'Medieval Magic and Witchcraft in the Popular Romance Novel', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 75-85. **

Brunt, Rosalind., 1984. 

'Career in Love: The Romantic World of Barbara Cartland.' in Popular Fiction and Social Change. ed. Christopher Pawling , (New York: St Martin's), pp. 127-156.

Burley, Stephanie, 2003. 

'What's a Nice Girl like You Doing in a Book like This?: Homoerotic Reading and Popular Romance', in Doubled Plots: Romance and History, see below, pp. 127-46. **

Burnett, Ann, & Rhea Reinhardt Beto, 2000. 

‘Reading Romance Novels: An Application of Parasocial Relationship Theory’, North Dakota Journal of Speech & Theatre, 13. [3]

Cadogan, Mary, 1994. 

And Then Their Hearts Stood Still: An Exuberant Look at Romantic Fiction Past and Present (London: Macmillan).

Calhoun-French, Diane M., 1999. 

'Time-Travel and Related Phenomena in Contemporary Popular Romance Fiction', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 100-12. **

Capelle, Annick, 1996. 

'Harlequin Romances in Western Europe: The Cultural Interactions of Romantic Literature', in European Readings of American Popular Culture, ed. John Dean & Jean-Paul Gabilliet (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press), pp. 91-100. **

Charles, Helen, 1995. 

'(Not) Compromising: Inter-Skin Colour Relations', in Romance Revisited , ed. Jackie Stacey and Lynne Pearce (New York: New York UP), pp. 197-209. [The author says that she looks at 'inter-skin colour relations in the television programme Taboo (1993) along with Barbara Burford's novella, The Threshing Floor (1986) and Ann Allen Shockley's The Mistress and the Slave Girl (1987)'.]

Chelton, Mary K., 1991. 

'Unrestricted Body Parts and Predictable Bliss: The Audience Appeal of Formula Romances.' Library Journal 116.12: 44-49.

Christian-Smith, Linda K., 1987. 

'Gender, Popular Culture, and Curriculum - Adolescent Romance Novels as Gender Text', Curriculum Inquiry, 17.4:365-406.

Christian-Smith, Linda K., 1990. 

Becoming a Woman Through Romance (New York; London: Routledge).

Clark, Beverly Lyon; Bernier, Karen Gennari; Henneberry-Nassau, Michelle; Jenks, Lauren Beth; Moorman, Angie J.; Rhoades, Marah Bianca, 1996. 

'Reading Romance, Reading Ourselves', The Centennial Review, 40.2: 359-84.

Clawson, L., 2005. 

'Cowboys and schoolteachers: Gender in romance novels, secular and Christian', Sociological Perspectives,48.4:461-79. Abstract

Cohn, Jan, 1988. 

Romance and the Erotics of Property: Mass-Market Fiction for Women (Durham and London: Duke UP). Contents and Excerpts

Coward, Rosalind, 1984. 

'An Overwhelming Desire', in Female Desire: Women’s Sexuality Today (London: Paladin Grafton Books), pp. 187-196. [This is the chapter which focuses on the romance.]

Crane, Lynda L., 1994. 

'Romance Novel Readers: in Search of Feminist Change?', Women's Studies, 23.3: 257-69.

Crawford, Mary, 1994. 

'Rethinking the Romance: Teaching the Content and Function of Gender Stereotypes in the Psychology of Women Course', Teaching of Psychology, 21: 151-153. Fragment of Article **

Crusie, Jennifer, 1997. 

‘Romancing Reality: The Power of Romance Fiction to Reinforce and Re-Vision the Real’, [4], first published in Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres, 1-2: 81-93.

Crusie Smith, Jennifer, 1999. 

'This Is Not Your Mother's Cinderella: The Romance Novel as Feminist Fairy Tale', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 51-61. [5]

Dandridge, Rita B., 2003. 

'The Race, Gender, Romance Connection: A Black Feminist Reading of African American Women's Historical Romances', in Doubled Plots: Romance and History, see below, pp. 185-???. **

Darbyshire, Peter, 2000. 

‘Romancing the World: Harlequin Romances, the Capitalist Dream, and the Conquest of Europe and Asia’, Studies in Popular Culture 23.1 [6]

Darbyshire, Peter, 2002. 

‘The Politics of Love: Harlequin Romances and the Christian Right’, Journal of Popular Culture (Popular Culture Center, Bowling Green State Univ., OH) (35:4) [Spring 2002]: 75-87.

Diekman, A. B., McDonald, M., & Gardner, W. L., 2000. 

'Love Means Never Having To Be Careful: The Relationship Between Reading Romance Novels and Safe Sex Behavior', Psychology of Women Quarterly, 24.2: 179 - 188. Abstract **

Dixon, jay, 1999. 

The Romance Fiction of Mills & Boon 1909-1990s (London: UCL Press). Contents and excerpt

Doubled Plots: Romance and History, 2003. 

eds. Susan Strehle and Mary Paniccia Carden (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi).

Douglas, Ann, 1980. 

'Soft-Porn Culture: Punishing the Liberated Woman.' The New Republic Vol.183, No.9 （August 30, 1980): 25-29.

Dubino, Jeanne. 1993. 

“The Cinderella Complex: Romance Fiction, Patriarchy, and Capitalism.” Journal of Popular Culture, 27.3: 103-118.

Ebert, Teresa L., 1988. 

'The Romance of Patriarchy: Ideology, Subjectivity, and Postmodern Feminist Cultural Theory', Cultural Critique, 10: 19-57.

Eike, Ann M., 1986. 

‘An Investigation of the Market for Paperback Romance Novels’, Journal of Cultural Economics, 10:1: 25-36.

Elliott, Margaret A., 1996. 

'The Librarian's Stereotyped Image in Romance Novels, 1980-1995: Has the Image Changed?', Master's Research Paper, Kent State University. ERIC Document ED401924. Abstract and PDF

Flesch, Juliet, 2004. 

From Australia With Love: A History of Modern Australian Popular Romance Novels (Fremantle, W.A.: Curtin University Books).

Flesch, Juliet, 1996. 

'A Labour of Love? Compiling a Bibliography of Twentieth Century Australian Romance Novels', APLIS, 9.3-4: 170-78.

Fox, Pamela, 1994. 

'The "Revolt of the Gentle": Romance and the Politics of Resistance in Working-Class Women's Writing', NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 27.2: 140-160.

Frantz, Sarah S. G. 

"'Expressing' Herself: The Romance Novel and the Feminine Will to Power," in Scorned Literature: Essays on the History and Criticism of Popular Mass-Produced Fiction in America. Eds. Lydia Cushman Schurman and Deidre Johnson. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2002. 17-36.

Frenier, Mariam Darce, 1988. 

Good-bye Heathcliff: Changing Heroes, Heroines, Roles, and Values in Women’s Category Romances, Contributions in Women’s Studies, no. 94. (New York: Greenwood Press). Contents and excerpts

Ganguly, Keya. 1991. 

'Alien(ated) Readers: Harlequin Romances and the Politics of Popular Culture', Communication, 12: 129-50. **

Grescoe, Paul, 1996. 

The Merchants of Venus: Inside Harlequin and the Empire of Romance (Vancouver, B.C.: Raincoast). **

Heinecken, Dawn, 1999. 

'Changing Ideologies in Romance Fiction', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 149-72. **

Hermes, Joke, 1992. 

‘Sexuality in Lesbian Romance Fiction’, Feminist Review, 42: 49-66.

Hermes, Joke, 1992. 

'Entertainment or Enlightenment - Sexuality In Lesbian Romance Novels', Argument, 34.3:389-402.

Hinnant, Charles H., 2003.

"Desire and the Marketplace: A Reading of Kathleen Woodiwiss's The Flame and the Flower," in Doubled Plots: Romance and History, see above, pp. 147-164.

Hubbard, Rita C., 1983. 

'The Changing-Unchanging Heroines and Heroes of Harlequin Romances, 1950-1979. in The Hero in Transition.,ed. Ray B. Browne and Marshall W. Fishwick, (Bowling Green, OH: Popular), pp. 171-179.

Hubbard, Rita C., 1992. 

'Magic and Transformation: Relationships in Popular Romance Novels, 1950 to the 1980s', in Popular Culture: An Introductory Text, ed. Kevin Lause & Jack Nachbar (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press), pp. 476-488. **

Jackson, Stevi, 1995. 

'Women and Heterosexual Love: Complicity, Resistance and Change', in Romance Revisited , ed. Jackie Stacey and Lynne Pearce (New York: New York UP), pp. 49-62.

Jarvis, Christine, 1995. 

'Romancing the Curriculum: Empowerment through Popular Culture',Convergence, 28.3: 71-7.

Jarvis, Christine, 1999. 

'Love Changes Everything: The Transformative Potential of Popular Romantic Fiction', Studies in the Education of Adults, 31.2:109-122.

Jensen, Margaret Ann, 1984. 

Love's $weet Return: The Harlequin Story (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press). **

Johnson-Kurek, Rosemary E., 1999. 

' "I Am Not a Bimbo": Persona, Promotion, and the Fabulous Fabio', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 35-50. **

Johnson-Kurek, Rosemary E., 1999. 

'Leading Us into Temptation: The Language of Sex and the Power of Love', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 113-48. **

Jones, Ann Rosalind, 1986. 

‘Mills & Boon Meets Feminism’, in The Progress of Romance: The Politics of Popular Fiction, ed. Jean Radford (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), pp. 195-218.

Juhasz, Suzanne, 1988. 

‘Texts to Grow On: Reading Women’s Romance Fiction’, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 7:2: 239-259.

Juhasz, Suzanne, 1998. 

'Lesbian Romance Fiction and the Plotting of Desire: Narrative Theory, Lesbian Identity, and Reading Practice', Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, 17.1: 65-82.

Kaler, Anne K., 1999. 

'Conventions of Captivity in Romance Novels', in Romance Conventions, see below, pp. 86-99. **

Kaler, Anne K., 1999. 

' Hero, Heroine, or HERA: A New Name for an Old Problem', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 187-92. **

Kapell, Matthew, and Suzanne Becker., 2005. 

'Patriarchy, the Christian Romance Novel, and the 'Ecosystem of Sex'.' Popular Culture Review 16.1:147-155.

Kramer, Daniela & Moore, Michael, 2001. 

‘Gender Roles, Romantic Fiction and Family Therapy’, Psycoloquy 12,#24 [7]

Kramer, Daniela & Moore, Michael, 2001. 

'Family Myths in Romantic Fiction', Psychological Reports, 88.1:29-41.

Krentz, Jayne Ann, Ed. 

Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992).

Light, Alison. 1984. 

‘Returning to Manderley – Romance Fiction, Female Sexuality and Class’, Feminist Review, 16: 7-25.

Litton, Joyce, 1994. 

'From Seventeenth Summer to Miss Teen Sweet Valley: Female and Male Sex Roles in Teen Romances, 1942-91', in Images of the Child, ed. Harry Eiss (Bowling Green, OH: Popular), pp. 19-34.

Maher, Jennifer, 2001. 

'Ripping the Bodice: Eating, Reading, and Revolt', College Literature, 28.1:64-83.

Mangat, T.K., 1998. 

'The surgeon in popular fiction - The Mills and Boon doctor-nurse romance', Theoretical Surgery, 3.2:89-92.

Mann, Peter H., 1981. 

'The Romantic Novel and its Readers', Journal of Popular Culture, 15.1: 9-18.

Mann, Peter H., 1985. 

'Romantic Fiction and Its Readership', Poetics, 14.1-2: 95-105. **

Margolies, David, 1982. 

‘Mills & Boon -- Guilt without sex’, Red Letters, 14: 5-13. **

Markert, John, 1985. 

'Romance Publishing and the Production of Culture', Poetics, 14.1-2: 69-93. **

Marks, Pamela. 1999. 

'The Good Provider in Romance Novels', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 10-22. **

Masteller, Jean Carwile, 1996. 

'Romancing the Reader: From Laura Jean Libbey to Harlequin Romance and Beyond', in Pioneers, Passionate Ladies, and Private Eyes: Dime Novels, Series Books, and Paperbacks, ed. Larry E. Sullivan, and Lydia Cushman Schurman (New York: Haworth Press). **

McAleer, Joseph, 1999. 

Passion's Fortune: The Story of Mills & Boon (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Contents and excerpts

McCaffery, Kate, 1994. 

‘Palimpsest of Desire: The Re-Emergence of the American Captivity Narrative as Pulp Romance’, Journal of Popular Culture, 27.4: 43-56. **

McKnight-Trontz, Jennifer, 2002. 

The Look of Love: The Art of the Romance Novel (Princeton Architectural Press). ** [This is about the cover art of romance novels from the 1940s to the 1970s]

Miles, Angela, 1988. 

‘Confessions of a Harlequin Reader: Learning Romance and the Myth of Male Mothers’, Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, 12, no. 1-2: 1-36. **

Mitchell, Karen S., 1996. 

‘Ever After: Reading the Women Who Read (and Re-Write) Romances’, Theatre Topics, 6.1: 51-69. [As might be supposed from the title of the Journal, this is about drama: the author 'decided to stage a performance centered on the popular romance genre and the women who read these novels']

Modleski, Tania, 1980. 

‘The Disappearing Act: A Study of Harlequin Romances’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5: 435-448.

Modleski, Tania, 1982. 

Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-produced fantasies for women (New York: Routledge).

Morgan, Paula, 2003. 

“Like Bush Fire in My Arms”: Interrogating the World of Caribbean Romance, Journal of Popular Culture 36.4: 804-827.

Mulhern, Chieko Irie, 1989. 

'Japanese Harlequin Romances as Transcultural Woman's Fiction', The Journal of Asian Studies, 48.1: 50-70.

Mussell, Kay, 1984. 

Fantasy and Reconciliation: Contemporary Formulas of Women's Romance Fiction (Westport CT: Greenwood Press). **

Neal, Lynn S, 2006. 

Romancing God: Evangelical Women and Inspirational Fiction (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press). [Description of the book and newspaper interview with the author about it.]

Neylon, Virginia Lyn, 2003. 

'Reading and Writing the Romance Novel: An Analysis of Romance Fiction and Its Place in the Community College Classroom', Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (54th, New York, NY, March 19-22, 2003). 20 pgs. ERIC Document ED477339. [Available on the web in html or as a Word document from the author's webpage]

North American Romance Writers, 1999. 

ed. Kay Mussell and Johanna Tuñón (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press).

Nyquist, Mary, 1993. 

'Romance in the Forbidden Zone', in ReImagining Women: Representations of Women in Culture, ed. Shirley Neuman (ed. & introd.) and Glennis Stephenson (Toronto: U of Toronto Press),pp. 160-81.

Owen, M., 1997. 

'Re-inventing romance: Reading popular romantic fiction', Women's Studies International Forum, 20.4:537-46.

Paizis, George, 1998. 

'Category Romances - Translation, Realism and Myth', The Translator, 4: 1-24. Abstract

Parameswaran Radhika, 1999. 

'Western Romance Fiction as English-Language Media in Postcolonial India', Journal of Communication, 49.3: 84-105. Abstract PDF [8]

Parameswaran, Radhika, 2002. 

'Reading Fictions of Romance: Gender, Sexuality, and Nationalism in Postcolonial India', Journal of Communication, 52.4: 832-851. Abstract PDF[9]

Philips Deborah, 2000. 

'Shopping for Men: The Single Woman Narrative', Women: a Cultural Review, 11.3: 238-251. Abstract

Purdie, Susan, 1992. 

'Janice Radway, Reading the Romance', in Reading into Cultural Studies ed. Martin Barker and Anne Beezer, (London: Routledge), pp. 148-64.

Puri, Jyoti, 1997. 

‘Reading Romance Novels in Postcolonial India’, Gender & Society, 11.4: 434-452.

Rabine, Leslie W., 1985. 

‘Romance in the Age of Electronics: Harlequin Enterprises’, Feminist Studies 11.1: 39-60.

Radway, Janice A., 1983. 

‘Women Read the Romance: The Interaction of Text and Context’, Feminist Studies, 9.1: 53-78.

Radway, Janice A., 1984. 

'Interpretive Communities And Variable Literacies: The Functions Of Romance Reading', Daedalus, 113.3:49-73.

Radway, Janice A., 1991. 

Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press). First published in 1984. The 1991 edition contains a new introduction by the author.

Radway, Janice, 1994. 

'Romance and the Work of Fantasy: Struggles over Feminine Sexuality and Subjectivity at Century's End', in Viewing, Reading, Listening: Audiences and Cultural Reception, ed. Jon Cruz and Justin Lewis (Colorado: Westview Press), pp. 213-31. Reprinted in Feminism and Cultural Studies, ed. Morag Shiach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 395-???. **

Raub, Patricia, 1992.

"Issues of Passion and Power in E. M. Hull's The Sheik." Women's Studies, 21: 119-128.

Regis, Pamela., 1997. 

'Complicating Romances and Their Readers: Barrier and Point of Ritual Death in Nora Roberts's Category Fiction.' Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 3.1-2:145-154.

Regis, Pamela, 2003. 

A Natural History of the Romance Novel (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press).

Ricker-Wilson, Carol, 1999. 

‘Busting Textual Bodices: Gender, Reading, and the Popular Romance’, English Journal, 88:3: 57-64.

Roberts, Sherron Killingsworth, 2002. 

'Meet Jessica and Elizabeth from Sweet Valley: Who Are the Female Role Models in Popular Romance Novels for Children?', Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (New Orleans, LA, April 1-5, 2002). 21 pgs. ERIC document ED470819.

Romantic Conventions, 1999. 

Anne K. Kaler and Rosemary E. Johnson-Kurek, eds. (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press).

Ruggiero, Josephine A. and Weston, Louise C., 1983. 

'Conflicting Images Of Women In Romance Novels', International Journal of Women's Studies, 6.1:18-25.

Ryder, M. E., 1999. 

'Smoke and mirrors: Event patterns in the discourse structure of a romance novel', Journal of Pragmatics, 31.8: 1067-1080. Abstract **

Scott, Alison M. 2002. 

'Romance in the Stacks; or, Popular Romance Fiction Imperiled', in Scorned Literature: Essays on the History and Criticism of Popular Mass-Produced Fiction in America, ed. Lydia Cushman Schurman and Deidre Johnson, Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture, 75 (Westport, CT: Greenwood),pp. 213-224.

Shapiro, Joan, & Lee Kroeger, 1991. 

‘Is Life a Romantic Novel? The Relationship Between Attitudes About Intimate Relationships and the Popular Media’, American Journal of Family Therapy, 19.3: 226-236. **

Snitow, Ann Barr, 1979. 

‘Mass Market Romance: Pornography for Women is Different’, Radical History Review 20 (Spring/Summer 1979):141-61. Republished in Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality 1983., ed. Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell & Sharon Thompson (New York: Monthly Review Press), pp. 245-263. Republished in "Feminist Literary Theory: A Reader", ed. Mary Eagleton. New York: Basil Blacwell, 1986.

Spehner, Norbert, 1997. 

'L'Amour, toujours l'amour ...: The Popular Love Story and Romance: A Basic Checklist of Secondary Sources.',Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 3.1-2:253-268.

Stacey, Jackie & Lynne Pearce, 1995. 

'The Heart of the Matter: Feminists Revisit Romance', in Romance Revisited, ed. Lynne Pearce & Jackie Stacey (New York: New York University Press), pp. 11-??. **

Stotesbury, John A., 2004 

'Genre and Islam in Recent Anglophone Romantic Fiction', in Refracting the Canon in Contemporary British Literature and Film, ed. Christian Gutleben & Susana Onega, Postmodern Studies, 35 (Amsterdam: Rodopi), pp. 69-82. Abstract **

Teo, Hsu-Ming, 2004. 

'Romancing the Raj: Interracial Relations in Anglo-Indian Romance Novels', History of Intellectual Culture, 4.1.[10]

Tetel Andresen, Julie, 1999. 

'Postmodern Identity (Crisis): Confessions of a Linguistic Historiographer and Romance Writer', in Romantic Conventions, see above, pp. 173-???. **

Thompson, Anne Booth, 

'Rereading Fifties Teen Romance: Reflections on Janet Lambert', The Lion and the Unicorn, 29.3:373-96.

Thurston,Carol M., 1985. 

‘Popular Historical Romances: Agent for Social Change? An Exploration of Methodologies’, Journal of Popular Culture, 19:1: 35-45.

Thurston, Carol, 1987. 

The Romance Revolution: Erotic Novels for Women and the Quest for a New Sexual Identity (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press).

Timson, Beth S. 

‘The Drug Store Novel: Popular Romantic Fiction and the Mainstream Tradition’, Studies in Popular Culture, 6: 88-96. **

Trachsel, Mary, 1997. 

'Horse Stories and Romance Fiction: Variants or Alternative Texts of Female Identity?', Reader: Essays in Reader-Oriented Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy , 38-39: 20-41.

Treacher, Amal, 1988. 

‘What is life without my love: Desire and romantic fiction’, in Sweet Dreams – Sexuality, Gender and Popular Fiction, ed. Susannah Radstone (London: Lawrence & Wishart), pp. 73-90. **

Voaden, Rosalynn, 1995. 

'The Language of Love: Medieval Erotic Vision and Modern Romance Fiction', in Romance Revisited , ed. Jackie Stacey and Lynne Pearce (New York: New York UP), pp. 78-88.

Wareing, Shan, 1994. 

'And Then He Kissed Her: The Reclamation of Female Characters to Submissive Roles in Contemporary Fiction', in Feminist Linguistics in Literary Criticism, ed. Katie Wales, Essays and Studies, 47 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer), pp. 117-36.

Wardrop, Stephanie, 1997. 

'Last of the Red Hot Mohicans: Miscegenation in the Popular American Romance', MELUS, 22. 2, Popular Literature and Film: 61-74.

Weisser, Susan Ostrov. 1994. 

'The Wonderful-Terrible Bitch Figure in Harlequin Novels', in Feminist Nightmares: Women at Odds: Feminism and the Problem of Sisterhood, ed. Susan Ostrov Weisser and Jennifer Fleischner (New York: New York University Press), pp. 269-82. **

Westman, Karin E., 2003. 

'A Story of Her Weaving: The Self-Authoring Heroines of Georgette Heyer's Regency Romance', in Doubled Plots: Romance and History, see above, pp. 165-184. **

Whissell, Cynthia, 1996. 

‘Mate Selection in Popular Women's Fiction’, Human Nature, 7: 427-447. **

Whissell, Cynthia, 1998. 

'The Formula Behind Women's Romantic Formula Fiction (Statistical survey of 50 Harlequin-Presents novels)', Arachne, 5.1:89-119. [The online text available here may only be an extract from the original as it is extremely short and has no page-numbers]

Wood, Helen, 2004. 

'What Reading the Romance Did for Us', European Journal of Cultural Studies, 7.2:147-54. [This is about the place of Radway's Reading the Romance in the history/development of cultural studies]

Wood, Julia T., 2001. 

'The normalization of violence in heterosexual romantic relationships: Women's narratives of love and violence', Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 18.2: 239-261.** There is an abstract and a press release reporting Wood's findings.

Woodruff, Juliette, 1985. 

'A spate of words, full of sound & fury, signifying nothing: or, How to read in Harlequin', Journal of Popular Culture, 19.2:25-32.

Zidle, Abby, 1999. 

'From Bodice-Ripper to Baby-Sitter: The New Hero in Mass-Market Romance', in Romantic Conventions, see above, pp. 23-24. **