It's hard for a geeky bookworm like me to imagine that there might have been a world before by-women, for-women publishers Virago, but as May approaches we are popping open the pink cava to celebrate the 30th birthday of their Virago Modern Classics imprint. What started in 1978 with a single book would gradually become the 534-and-counting strong list which has come to define the post-second wave canon for generations of readers. Today Margaret Atwood and Sarah Waters head its vibrant library of unputdownable books.

Over four decades, the VMC series has redefined what the word ‘classic’ means by rediscovering and reissuing dusty, forgotten gems to tell the histories of women’s lives which span class, continents and centuries. And, as a blushingly devoted fan, what could replace the potential thrill of slipping one of those olive-green covered, gently thumbed vintage volumes with Eve's bitten apple on the spine off the charity shop shelf and hoping that it's one you haven't read? So here are the five Virago authors you need on your bedside table.

1. Angela Carter (1940-1992)

My favourite! Hugely imaginative feminist thinker and dreamily magnificent originator of worlds where winged trapeze artists and filthy puss in boots dwell. Carter wrote in a fiercely sensuous style, her prose dripping with a genius wit and - put out that cigarette right now - she died cruelly prematurely of lung cancer.

Must read: The Passion Of New Eve, a sci-fi feminist vision so astonishing that critics had to make up new words just to try to describe what they’d read.

2. Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962)

She might have been one of Virginia Woolf’s infamous galpals and Bloomsbury-set salon buddy, but lest we forget that she was also the author of several epoch-defining Edwardian novels.

Must read: All Passion Spent in which an elderly lady retreats from public and family life following her statesman husband's death to contemplate and reflect on everything she didn't do and get away from her dreadful offspring.

3. Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)

This southern scholarship girl turned queen bee of the Harlem Renaissance movement was only given the recognition she deserved posthumously – thanks partly to Virago, of course.

Must read: Their Eyes Were Watching God. Zadie Smith has written the introduction to the new 30th anniversary edition, which is about as impressive an endorsement as you can get round these parts.

4. Jacqueline Susann (1918-1974)

This scarily groomed superstar author lived out her heroines’ Hollywood lives off the page.

Must read: Valley Of The Dolls. Pill-popping art house glamourpusses and proto-feminist career girls run riot in this cult pageturner about three so-called friends and their twenty-something struggles.

5. Grace Metalious (1924-1964)

Grace rewrote the pulp paperback bestseller rulebook with her trashtastic backlist.

Must read: Peyton Place, the legendarily banned, doorstopper-sized soapalicious opus set in small town America in the 1950s.

Check out the VMC timeline and wonder how you'll ever find the time to read them all... then let us know who your favourite bad-apple Virago lady is.