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 alma
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."
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Hardcover
,
222 pages
Published
May 19th 2011
by Cambridge University Press
(first published August 5th 2010)