The author recounts her voyage to Peru in 1833 to claim a family fortune, describes her adventures along the way, and argues for the legalization of divorce

"The Politics of the Essay is that rare scholarly work that provides both a history of this relatively new field and of its formal characteristics and inspires its readers to want to participate in the making of this history." -- Signs The first in-depth study of the relationship between women and essays. Employing gender, race, class, and national identity as axes of analysis, this volume introduces new perspectives into what has been a largely apolitical discussion of the essay. Includes an original essay by Susan Griffin.

Here for the first time is a book devoted exclusively to the topic of women’s autobiography in nineteenth-century France. Tracing the rise of autobiography in relation to women’s domestic confinement, Kathleen Hart demonstrates how Flora Tristan, George Sand, and Louise Michel transformed the genre. Inspired by Romantic socialism, each of these remarkable autobiographers links the story of her personal development to socio-historic change. In the wake of the 1830 Revolution, Tristan chronicles social unrest as she relates her progressive transformation into humanity’s “Woman Guide” in Peregrinations of a Pariah (1838). Writing in the aftermath of the 1848 Revolution, Sand consolidates her role as a mediator between the rich and the poor in Story of My Life (1854). A legend of the 1871 Paris Commune, Michel establishes herself as the poet and prophet of a mythical Revolution yet to come in her Memoirs (1886). Exploring the dynamic interplay between revolution and feminist acts of self-affirmation, Revolution and Women’s Autobiography in Nineteenth-Century France will appeal to scholars of history, French culture, literature, and women’s studies.

A nineteenth-century social reform proposal, available again

This is a collection of women's travel writings, including work by Joan Didion, Edith Wharton, Mildred Cable, Willa Cather, Isak Dinesen, and others. In wry, lyrical, and sometimes wistful voices, they write of disguising themselves as men for safety, of longing for family left behind or falling in love with people met along the way, and of places as diverse as icy Himalayan passes and dusty American pioneer towns, the darkly wooded Siberian landscape and the lavender-covered hills of Provence. Yet even as their voices, experiences, and paths vary, they share with one another--and with us as readers--reflections upon their gender as it is illuminated by unfamiliar surroundings. Edited and with an Introduction by Mary Morris, in collaboration with Larry O'Connor. Contributors and writings include: Mary Wollstonecraft, "Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark"; Flora Tristan, "Peregrinations of a Pariah"; Frances Trollope, from "Domestic Manners of the Americans"; Eliza Farnham, from "Life in Prairie Land'; Isabella Bird, from "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains"; Margaret Fountaine, from "Love Among the Butterflies"; Gertrude Bell, from "The Desert and the Sown"; Edith Wharton, from "In Morocco"; Willa Cather, from "Willa Cather in Europe'; Isak Dinesen, from "Out of Africa"; Kate O'Brien, from "Farewell Spain"; Rebecca West, from "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon"; Ella Maillart, from "The Cruel Way"; Emily Hahn, from "Times and Places"; M.F.K. Fisher, from "Long Ago in France"; Joan Didion, from "The White Album"; Christina Dodwell, from "Travels with Fortune: An African Adventure"; Annie Dillard, from "Teaching a Stone to Talk'; Gwendolyn MacEwen, from "Noman's Land".

From eccentric, to cautious, to conventional, An anthology of Women's Travel Writing aims to challenge stereotypes of women travelers by presenting a range of possible forms of writing and new archetypes of female travelers. These diverse writings also attempt to confront the textual problems which result from both writing and traveling as a woman, such as the depiction of other women, the representation of spatial relations, and the relationship to the adventure hero narrative.