A sequence of sharp critical essays interrogates and satirizes the figure of the bas-bleu, the woman who adopts masculine literary pretensions, by proposing a working definition, surveying contemporaneous women writers, and grouping recurring types such as the naïve, the boastful, and the nearly talented. Through polemical close readings the author diagnoses patterns of pedantry, vanity, and affectation, contrasts purportedly authentic feminine expression with imitation, and widens the critique to include men who write in affected feminine voices, arguing that these postures weaken the distinctiveness of genuine female literary expression.