Templates for authorship : American women's literary autobiography of the 1930s / Windy Counsell Petrie.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Petrie, Windy Counsell, author.

Contributor:

Caroline F. Schimmel Collection of Women in the American Wilderness (University of Pennsylvania)

Schimmel, Caroline F., donor, associated name.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women authors, American--Biography--History and criticism.

Women authors, American.

Women authors, American--Biography.

American prose literature--Women authors--History and criticism.

American prose literature.

American prose literature--Women authors.

American prose literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Autobiography--Women authors--History and criticism.

Autobiography.

Biography as a literary form--History and criticism.

Biography as a literary form.

Autobiography--Women authors.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Penn Provenance:

Schimmel, Caroline F. (donor) (Schimmel 7562)

Physical Description:

x, 306 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2021]

Summary:

"As autobiographies by famous women like Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart became bestsellers in the 1930s, American publishers sought out literary autobiographies from female novelists, poets, salon hosts, and editors. Templates for Authorship analyzes the market and cultural forces that created an unprecedented boom in American women's literary autobiography. Windy Counsell Petrie considers twelve autobiographies from a diverse group of writers, ranging from highbrow modernists such as Gertrude Stein and Harriet Monroe to popular fiction writers like Edith Wharton and Edna Ferber, and lesser known figures such as Grace King and Carolyn Wells. Since there were few existing examples of women's literary autobiography, these writers found themselves marketed and interpreted within four cultural templates: the artist, the activist, the professional, and the celebrity. As they wrote their life stories, the women adapted these templates to counter unwanted interpretations and resist the sentimental feminine traditions of previous generations with innovative strategies of deferral, elision, comedy, and collaboration. This accessible study contends that writing autobiography offered each of these writers an opportunity to define and defend her own literary legacy"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 The Artist's Soul or the Woman's Life Renunciation in Edith Wharton's A Backward Glance and Grace King's Memories of a Southern Woman of Letters

ch. 2 Daring Denunciations Celebrity Drama in Gertrude Atherton's Adventures of a Novelist and Margaret Anderson's My Thirty Years' War

ch. 3 Refusing Nostalgia, Denying Desire Didactic Activism in the Autobiographies of Margaret Deland and Charlotte Perkins Gilman

ch. 4 Women of Vision Pioneering Collaborations in Mary Austins Earth Horizon and Harriet Monroes A Poet's Life

ch. 5 American Everywomen Middlebrow Professionalism in Mary Roberts Rinehart's My Story and Edna Ferber's A Peculiar Treasure

ch. 6 Strategic Diversions The Veiled Autobiographies of Gertrude Stein and Carolyn Wells.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Schimmel 7562: Presented to the Penn Libraries in 2024 by Caroline F. Schimmel. Pages i-x in reverse order. Greeting card laid in. Irregularly shaped sheet laid in with ink inscription: Wonkily bound front matter.

ISBN:

9781625345516

1625345518

9781625345523

1625345526

OCLC:

1154520108