] The first person who springs to my mind is Queenie (Q.D.) Leavis, the wife of F.R. Leavis (another famous critic) -- could it be she? She was British, and her essays about women writers certainly included more than US writers, although I remember that Wharton was among them. Her " Collected Essays" were published in 1983 (just after she died). The second volume was about titled The American Novel and Reflections on the European Novel .