Kate Chopin

Margo Culley

The text is that of the first edition of the novel, published by Herbert S. Stone in 1899. It has been annotated by the editor and includes translations of French phrases and information about New Orleans locales, customs, and lore, the Bayou region, and Creole culture. "Bibliographical and Historical Contexts", expanded and introduced by a new Editor's Note, presents biographical, historical, and cultural documents contemporary with the novel's publication. Included are a biographical essay by the acclaimed Chopin biographer Emily Toth, "An Etiquette/Advice Book Sampler" with selections from the conduct books of the period in which Chopin lived and wrote, and period fashion plates from Harper's Bazar. A comprehensive "Criticism" section, introduced by a new Editor's Note, contains expanded selections from hard-to-find contemporary reviews of the novel; two letters of mysterious origin written in response to the novel; and Chopin's "Retraction," which followed The Awakening's negative reception. These are followed by twenty-seven interpretive essays, twelve of them new to the Second Edition, that provide a variety of perspectives on The Awakening, including essays by Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Nancy Walker, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Paula A. Treichler, Sandra M. Gilbert, Lee R. Edwards, Patricia S. Yaeger, Elizabeth Ammons, and Elaine Showalter. A Chronology of Chopin's life and an updated Selected Bibliography are also included.

An Authoritative Text, Biographical and Historical Contexts, Criticism

The Awakening

Focus on the works of Harriet Jacobs, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gertrude Stein, Mary McCarthy, Maxine Hong Kingston, and others.

Fea(s)ts of Memory

American Women's Autobiography

Catherine Portuges

Annotation 'Gendered Subjects' combines a number of classic statements on feminist pedagogy from the 1970s with recent original essays making significant and original contributions to the field.

The Dynamics of Feminist Teaching

Gendered Subjects

Gathers diary selections, describes the historical background of each writer, and discusses the changing function and content of diaries

The Diary Literature of American Women from 1764 to the Present

A Day at a Time

This is the first collection of essays to focus exclusively on the contribution of American women to the writing of autobiography. The Authors trace traditions of women's life-writing through three and a half centuries, from the narratives of Puritan women to contemporary multicultural literature. Contributors to the volume are major scholars in their fields: Sidonie Smith, Catharine Stimpson, Ann Gordon, Mary Mason, Nancy Walker, Kathleen Sands, Arlyn Diamond, and others whose essays all appear here for the first time. Reflecting recent theoretical approaches to autobiography, these essays draw upon work in literature, history, American studies, and religion, and treat both canonical writers of autobiography--Harriet Jacobs, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gertrude Stein, Mary McCarthy, Maxine Hong Kingston, and others--as well as lesser known and unknown writers. Through these lives we glimpse the wider worlds of which they were a part, including the abolition and suffrage movements, western frontier life, and the struggle for civil rights in the twentieth century. In her introduction, Margo Culley traces the dominant tradition of American women's autobiography back to the Puritan practice of "reading the self." Writing as women and expecting to be judged as such, authors from all periods exhibit ambivalence about the first person singular, yet give themselves "permission" to write in the hope that their stories will be useful to others, particularly other women. Such purpose allows these writers to indulge all the pleasures of autobiography--pleasures of language and imagination, of narrative, of reminiscence, and even egotism. Together these essays explore gender and genre as culturally inscribed, the construction of self within language systems, the nature of female subjectivity, and the shaping forces of memory and narrative as writers engage in the making of meaning and the making of history. Grounded in the multicultural reality that is America, these essays celebrate women's lives, women's autobiographical writing (including criticism), and the fea(s)ts of reading women's writing.

Margo Culley

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