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‘Salvage’ evokes complex dynamics of loss, recovery and value, in such contexts\ud as waste management or shipwreck and maritime law. Similar dynamics, often\ud triggered by a collective or individual experience of a void or an absence, motivate\ud and inform much research into the history of women’s writing. The present article\ud explores, from the point of view of literary studies, the effects of understanding\ud research into the history of women’s writing as a salvage operation. This metaphor\ud bestows on the material studied the ambiguous status of remains. While\ud hindering the full integration of women’ s writing in more traditional accounts of\ud the literary past, the understanding of surviving material as remains can become\ud the starting point for constructing new, inclusive approaches to literary history.\ud This reframing of the problem is possible thanks to recent developments in the\ud Humanities, with an increasing interest in models and theories that allow us\ud to better understand complex and dynamic phenomena. In order to illustrate\ud the possibilities of this approach, the article draws on a brief analysis of nineteenth-century Spanish fashion magazines.