Personal writings by women to 1900 : a bibliography of American and British writers /

Focusing on "American and British women's published accounts of their own experiences," this volume is the first in a series of works on women writers. It covers autobiographies, letters, diaries, and travel literature published before 1900, excluding works written during this period, but not published until later. Other volumes are planned to cover "imaginative literature" such as poetry, drama, short fiction, and juvenile works; the place of full-length fiction has not yet been determined. The compilers claim a "complete reading" of the British Museum catalog and National Union Catalog, supplemented by a search of the OCLC database and selected sourcebooks such as William Mathews and Arthur Ponsonby's wonderful compilations of British and American diarists. Their claim, at a minimum, is greatly overstated. There are numerous gaps, omissions, and typographical errors. Why, for example, do they omit the collected letters of Mary, Queen of Scots (listed in both the BM and NUC), or of Margaret of Anjou (Queen of England)? These and many other works listed in one or both union catalogs are overlooked. All four popular editions of Sara Coleridge's Memoir and Letters (1873) are left out, as are many other autobiographies (particularly those of a religious nature) such as Johanna Brook's 1868 Handmaid to the Lord. Other entries are incomplete: Lady Grizell Baillie's Memoirs are listed, but not her Recollections of a Happy Life (1890, listed in BM); Lady Anne Blunt's Pilgrimage to Nejd is included, but not the companion volume of travels, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates (1879, listed in NUC). Typographical errors also appear; the compiler of Jane Gibson's Memoirs, for example, is Frances Athow West, not "Athon Wells." Although neither exhaustive nor especially accurate, this work is extensive. Used in conjuction with other, briefer tools such as Vol. 3, "Autobiographical Writings" of Barbara Kanner's Women in English Social History (CH, Nov '87), Doris Robinson's Women Novelists 1891-1920 (CH, Feb '85), or the four-volume American Women Writers, ed. by Lina Mainiero (CH Jan '80, Nov '80, Sep '81, Jul '82), researchers may begin to approximate the coverage Davis and Joyce claim for this volume. Even with all its drawbacks, however, this work does add a valuable dimension to the field. Used with caution, it should prove helpful. -E. Patterson, Emory University