As Told by Herself
Women's Childhood Autobiography, 1845-1969

Lorna Martens (Author)

9780299339104

Hardback, published 31 October 2022

328 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.284 kg

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. 

• Introduction
• 1. Beginnings: Women’
  s Childhood Autobiography Prior to World War I
• Women’
  s Childhood Autobiography in France
• Mother-DaughterConflict
• Remembering
• The Self-Portrait
• The Working-Class Woman
• Women’
  s Childhood Autobiography in England, the United States, Australia, and Ireland
• "
  We"
  
• The Study
• Short Pieces
• The Victim
• Capturing the Child'
  s Vision
• The Inner Life of the Child
• Mixing Genres
• Women’
  s Childhood Autobiography Elsewhere around 1900
• In sum
• 2. The Interwar Years: Memoirs and Semi-Memoirs
• Memoirs
• Semi-Memoirs
• 1935
• “
  Splendor in the Grass”
  
• Humor
• Souvenirs
• In sum
• 3. The Interwar Years: The Golden Age of Psychological Self-Portraiture
• Self-portraits in the 1920s
• How I Became What I Became
• In YourFace
• Self-Expression in the 1930s
• Self-Assertion
• The Child’
  s Vision
• The Study
• In sum
• 4. Women’
  s Childhood Autobiography during World War II
• Semi-Memoirs
• Self-Focused Works
• Self-Assertion
• Remembering
• The Family
• Nest and the Challenges beyond It
• In sum
• 5. Women’
  s Childhood Autobiography from the End of the Second World War through the 1960s
• Autobiographies of Abuse
• Self-Focused Autobiographies
• Bildungsroman
• Relationships
• The Child’
  s Perspective
• A Stylistic Mix
• In sum
• Conclusion
• Bibliography of Women’
  s Childhood Autobiographies to 1969
• Notes