Autobiography in Early Modern England (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780521761727)

How did individuals write about their lives before a modern tradition of diaries and autobiographies was established? Adam Smyth examines the kinds of texts that sixteenth or seventeenth-century individuals produced to register their life, in the absence of these later, dominant templates. The book explores how readers responded to, and improvised with, four forms - the almanac, the financial account, the commonplace book and the parish register - to create written records of their lives. Early modern autobiography took place across these varied forms, often through a lengthy process of transmission and revision of written documents. This book brings a dynamic, surprising culture of life-writing to light for the first time, and will be of interest to anyone studying autobiography or early modern literature.

Author: Adam Smyth
ISBN-10: 0521761727
ISBN-13: 9780521761727
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 08/05/2010
Pages: 234
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.00h x 5.90w x 0.70d