A History of English Autobiography

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139939799

A History of English Autobiography explores the genealogy of autobiographical writing in England from the medieval period to the digital era. Beginning with an extensive introduction that charts important theoretical contributions to the field, this History includes wide-ranging essays that illuminate the legacy of English autobiography. Organized thematically, these essays survey the multilayered writings of such diverse authors as Chaucer, Bunyan, Carlyle, Newman, Wilde and Woolf. Written by a host of leading scholars, this History is the definitive, single-volume collection on English autobiography and will serve as an invaluable reference for specialists and students alike.

'Adam Smyth's revelatory history of the genre … told … in new ways, and with fresh examples …'

Thomas Keyer Source: London Review of Books

'This impressive collection resembles the genre with which it is concerned in so far as it pulls in several directions at once. … like autobiography, the book is suggestive, variegated, provocative.'

Trev Broughton Source: Life Writing

'Carefully argued, compelling, and ambitious, A History of English Autobiography extends the current revisionist approach to autobiography initiated by Patricia Meyer Spacks, Mary Poovey, Paul De Man, and Philippe Lejeune. Its interrogation of the genre and its rich range of rhetorical forms prove consistently illuminating. In sum, the collection advances the formal study of the self's written rendering.'

Katherine Kickel Source: The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv
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Dedication
pp v-vi
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Contents
pp vii-x
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List of contributors
pp xi-xvi
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1 - Introduction: The range, limits, and potentials of the form
pp 1-10
- By Adam Smyth, Literature at Balliol College
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PART 1 - AUTOBIOGRAPHY BEFORE ‘AUTOBIOGRAPHY’ (CA. 1300–1700)
pp 11-12
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2 - Medieval life-writing: Types, encomia, exemplars, patterns
pp 13-26
- By Barry Windeatt, University of Cambridge
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3 - Autobiographical selves in the poetry of Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, and Lydgate
pp 27-40
- By David Matthews, University of Manchester
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4 - The radicalism of early modern spiritual autobiography
pp 41-55
- By Molly Murray, Columbia University
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5 - Inscribing the early modern self: The materiality of autobiography
pp 56-69
- By Kathleen Lynch, Folger Institute
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6 - Re-writing revolution: Life-writing in the Civil Wars
pp 70-85
- By Suzanne Trill, University of Edinburgh
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7 - Money, accounting, and life-writing, 1600–1700: Balancing a life
pp 86-100
- By Adam Smyth, Balliol College, Oxford
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PART 2 - RELIGION, GENDER, THINGS (CA. 1700–1800)
pp 101-102
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8 - Structures and processes of English spiritual autobiography from Bunyan to Cowper
pp 103-118
- By Tessa Whitehouse, Queen Mary University of London
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9 - ‘Written by herself’: British women's autobiography in the eighteenth century
pp 119-132
- By Robert Folkenflik, University of California
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10 - The lives of things: Objects, it-narratives, and fictional autobiography, 1700–1800
pp 133-147
- By Lynn Festa, Rutgers University
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11 - Empiricist philosophers and eighteenth-century autobiography
pp 148-162
- By John Richetti, University of Pennsylvania
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PART 3 - THE MANY NINETEENTH CENTURIES (CA. 1800–1900)
pp 163-164
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12 - Working-class autobiography in the nineteenth century
pp 165-178
- By David Vincent, Open University
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13 - Romantic life-writing
pp 179-191
- By Duncan Wu, Georgetown University
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14 - Nineteenth-century spiritual autobiography: Carlyle, Newman, Mill
pp 192-206
- By Richard Hughes Gibson, Wheaton College, Timothy Larsen, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois
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15 - Emerging selves: The autobiographical impulse in Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Anne Thackeray Ritchie, and Annie Wood Besant
pp 207-220
- By Carol Hanbery MacKay, University of Texas in Austin
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16 - Victorian artists’ autobiographies: Transgression, res gestae, and the collective life
pp 221-236
- By Julie Codell, Arizona State University
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17 - Victorian print culture: Periodicals and serial lives, 1830–1860
pp 237-252
- By Stephen Colclough, Bangor University
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PART 4 - RELATIONAL LIVES AND FORMS OF REMEMBERING (CA. 1890–1930)
pp 253-254
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18 - ‘Fusions and interrelations’: Family memoirs of Henry James, Edmund Gosse, and others
pp 255-268
- By Max Saunders, Humanities Research Institute
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19 - Queer lives: Wilde, Sackville-West, and Woolf
pp 269-283
- By Georgia Johnston, Saint Louis University
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20 - Anecdotal remembrance: Forms of First and Second World War life-writing
pp 284-297
- By Hope Wolf, University of Sussex
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21 - Experiments in form: Modernism and autobiography in Woolf, Eliot, Mansfield, Lawrence, Joyce, and Richardson
pp 298-312
- By Laura Marcus, Oxford University
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22 - Psychoanalysis and autobiography
pp 313-328
- By Maud Ellman, University of Chicago
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