Traditions of Victorian women's autobiography

"Arguing that women's autobiography does not represent a singular separate tradition but instead embraces multiple lineages, Linda H. Peterson explores the poetics and politics of these diverse forms of life writing. She carefully analyzes the polemical Autobiography of Harriet Martineau and Personal Recollections of Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, the missionary memoirs that challenge Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, the Romantic autobiographies of the poet and poetess that Barrett Browning reconstructs in Aurora Leigh, the professional life stories of Margaret Oliphant and her contemporaries, and…