In Her Words. Women's Autobiography 1845–1969

At the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, many autobiographical texts about childhood and youth, written by women, were published, and in the 1980s, the phenomenon was close to becoming global. Interested in this trend, Lorna Martens asked herself: what is the history of this genre? The result is this book — the first systematic study of women's autobiographies about childhood, based on more than 175 works, mostly from English-speaking and European countries. What do the authors of these texts tell, hide, and emphasize? How do they understand the experience of girls growing up? How do they perceive themselves as part of a family or social group, and what role do other people play in their memories? Martens examines the origins and development of the genre from the mid-19th century to the 1960s, showing how women viewed their formative childhood experiences in different historical periods and how they recognized its uniqueness compared to men's. Lorna Martens is a literary historian, a professor at the University of Virginia.