Diaries and Journals of Literary Women from Fanny Burney to Virginia Woolf

This highly original book investigates the part played by their personal writings in the lives of eight literary women. Can private journals provide information about their authors' public works? Do diaries dramatise the development of an individual literary `voice'? What was the special attraction of the diary form for women, and why has it been so undervalued? Drawing on current feminist critical approaches, Judy Simons explores these and other questions in a stimulating and wide-ranging study of women's diary writing, which revises our entire way of thinking about this traditionally neglected genre and its particular implications for the woman writer. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Secret Exhibitionists: Women and their Diaries....Pages 1-18 The Fear of Discovery: The Journals of Fanny Burney....Pages 19-39 Self and Shadow: The Journal of Dorothy Wordsworth....Pages 40-60 Dark Imagery: The Journal of Mary Shelley....Pages 61-82 Behind the Scenes: The Early Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Browning....Pages 83-105 The Double Life: The Journal of Louisa May Alcott....Pages 106-127 The Life Apart: The Diaries of Edith Wharton....Pages 128-148 The Mask Beneath the Mask: The Journal of Katherine Mansfield....Pages 149-168 The Safety Curtain: The Diary of Virginia Woolf....Pages 169-188 Conclusion....Pages 189-204 Back Matter....Pages 205-218 "This highly original book investigates the part played by their personal writings in the lives of eight literary women. Can private journals provide information about their authors' public works? Do diaries dramatise the development of an individual literary ̀voice'? What was the special attraction of the diary form for women, and why has it been so undervalued? Drawing on current feminist critical approaches, Judy Simons explores these and other questions in a stimulating and wide-ranging study of women's diary writing, which revises our entire way of thinking about this traditionally neglect" -- Prové de l'editor Judy Simons. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 213-214) And Index.