Extending our understanding of modernism beyond the group of familiar canonical male names such as Joyce, Pound and Eliot, Djuna Barnes and other modernist women-writers have received detailed critical attention in recent years. The study looks at the origins of the modernist movement, linking gender, modernism and the literary, before considering the bearing these discourses had on Barness writing. The main contribution of this innovative and scholarly work is the exploration of the editorial changes that T. S. Eliot made to the manuscript of Nightwood, as well as the revisions of the early drafts initiated by Emily Holmes Coleman. The archival research presented here is a major advance in the scholarship, making this volume invaluable to both teachers and students of modern literature and Barnesian scholars.