As Told By Herself: Women’s Childhood Autobiography, 1845-1969 (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography)

As Told By Herself: Women’s Childhood Autobiography, 1845-1969 (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography)

Lorna Martens
$99.94
Publication Date: October 25th, 2022
Publisher:
University of Wisconsin Press
ISBN:
9780299339104
Pages:
328
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Description

As Told by Herself offers the first systematic study of women's autobiographical writing about childhood. More than 175 works—primarily from English-speaking countries and France, as well as other European countries—are presented here in historical sequence, allowing Lorna Martens to discern and reveal patterns as they emerge and change over time. What do the authors divulge, conceal, and emphasize? How do they understand the experience of growing up as girls? How do they understand themselves as parts of family or social groups, and what role do other individuals play in their recollections? To what extent do they concern themselves with issues of memory, truth, and fictionalization?

Stopping just before second-wave feminism brought an explosion in women's childhood autobiographical writing, As Told by Herself explores the genre's roots and development from the mid-nineteenth century, and recovers many works that have been neglected or forgotten. The result illustrates how previous generations of women—in a variety of places and circumstances—understood themselves and their upbringing, and how they thought to present themselves to contemporary and future readers. 

About the Author

Lorna Martens is a professor of German and comparative literature at the University of Virginia and is the author of several books, including The Promise of Memory: Childhood Recollection and Its Objects in Literary Modernism. 

Praise for As Told By Herself: Women’s Childhood Autobiography, 1845-1969 (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography)

"This is a comprehensive, insightful literary history of women’s autobiographies of childhood. Thoroughly researched, highly original, and persuasive, As Told by Herself: Women’s Childhood Autobiography, 1845–1969 addresses a significant scholarly gap in very productive and important ways."—Kate Douglas, author of Contesting Childhood: Autobiography, Trauma and Memory

“[A] thoroughly researched and analyzed study. Including almost 200 narratives by professional women of letters in multiple languages over more than a century, the result is the first historical examination of the female childhood autobiography of its kind. . . . Martens’s rich cache of stories reveals new insight into women as they saw themselves. . . . Highly recommended.”—CHOICE Reviews

“One of the most pleasurable aspects of reading Martens’ jargon-free prose is her knack of summarizing themes or characteristics in a succinct, sometimes witty phrase, or pulling up short to ask herself (and the reader) a question. . . . Her encyclopaedic study ensures that we will never again overlook the importance of this genre, or its ability to recount extraordinary girlhoods.”—Life Writing

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