CONSTANCE. FENIMORE. WOOLSON. I got an account just to endorse her awesomeness. In one of her very few surviving letters to Henry James (he wangled his way in charge of her correspondence after her death, and burned nearly all their letters to each other) she pulls a burn by saying something like, "'The Portrait of a Lady'? We'd be hearing from every fellow in America if some lady dared to write 'The Portrait of a Gentleman'!"

Her most-anthologized story is "Miss Grief", which is so, so good (and relevant to this discussion): http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/48597/