[3] WWP was founded in 1986 by English faculty members at Brown University and literary scholars from other institutions, but those involved were discussing the project as early as 1984.
[4] The project was initially created to address the lack of access to early English women writers before the Victorian era and promote new research on the recovered writings.
[5] One of WWP's earliest transcriptions was a 15-volume series "Women Writers in English, 1350–1850," completed in collaboration with Oxford University Press, which were released in print and for electronic use.
During this time, few new texts were added to the collection, but a new set of encoding methods and improved systems of documentation were implemented, as well as intensive training for those working on the project.
[8] Queries are entered into the textbase's search interface to find occurrences or relevant tagged texts, and these can be further sorted and analyzed using "keyword-in-context" (KWIC) or "Gobbet" display options.
[8] Users can toggle between a broader display and "reader mode," as well as situate the writing on a time slider for historical and literary context.