Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A wide array of documents, many of which have been unavailable since their original publication, is included: memoirs of individual and family life, travel narratives, letters, appeals for funds, testimonies of spiritual conversion, and scandalous memoirs. The writers represented here range from ladies to servants, from spinsters to courtesans, from actresses to poets, from wronged wives to wives of men engaged in British colonization.
A comprehensive introduction by the editors explores the material conditions of women's lives in Restoration and eighteenth-century Britain and critically examines the genre of autobiography. Each selection is preceded by an explanatory headnote that places the document in its historical, cultural, and social contexts.
Synopsis
A pioneering, diverse collection that provides insight into the powerful motive of self-expression that inspired women autobiographers around the eighteenth century.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [403]-418).
Table of Contents
Ann, Lady Fanshawe, 1625-1679. -- Mary Pennington, 1616?-1682. -- Margaret Fell Fox, 1614-1702. -- Jane Hoskens, 1693/94-1760? -- Agnes Beaumont, 1652-1720. -- Mary Churchman, 1654-1734. -- Christian Davies, 1667-1739. -- Mary Blandy, 1720-1752. -- Charlotte Clarke, 1713-1760. -- Catherine Jemmat, ?-1766. -- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 1689-1762. -- Jemima Kindersley, 1741-1809. -- Eliza Fay, 1756-1816. -- Mary Tonkin, Fl. 1781-1783. -- George Anne Bellamy, 1733?-1788. -- Jane Elizabeth Moore, 1738-after 1796. -- Lady Elisabeth Craven, 1750-1828. -- Phillippina Burton Hill, 1754?-after 1791. --Ann Sheldon, Fl 1787. -- Elizabeth Gooch, 1756-after 1806. -- Hannah Robertson, 1724-1806? -- Anna Maria Falconbridge, Fl. 1790's. -- Mary Eleanor Bowes, 1749-1800. -- Margaret Coghlan, 1762?-1787. -- Ann Radcliffe, 1764-1823. -- Mary Ann Parker, 1760?-after 1795. -- Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759-1797. -- Mary Robinson, 1758-1800. -- Maria, Lady Nugent, 1771?-1834. -- Mary R. Stockdale, 1769-after 1818.