Records of Girlhood: Volume Two: An Anthology of Nineteenth-Century WomenÆs Childhoods

In this follow-up to her 2000 anthology, Valerie Sanders again brings together an exciting group of women whose autobiographical accounts of their childhoods show them making sense of the children they were and the women they have become. The twelve women included juxtapose recollections of the bizarre with the quotidian, and accounts of external events with the development of a complex inner life. Reading and acting are important themes, as is the precariousness of childhood, whether occasioned by a father's financial pressures or by the early death of a parent. Significantly, most grew up expecting to earn their own living. The balanced selection includes children's authors (Frances Hodgson Burnett and E. Nesbit), political figures (Emmeline Pankhurst and Louisa Twining), and well-known writers (Sydney Owenson, Anne Thackeray Ritchie, Sarah Grand). Of significant interest to scholars working in the fields of women's autobiography, the history of childhood, and Victorian literature, the anthology includes a scholarly introduction and brief biographical sketches of each woman.