LoveReading Says
Traversing four centuries, Secret Voices: A Year of Women's Diaries sees biographer and journalist Sarah Gristwood present an enlightening record of female experiences, revealing what has and — crucially — what hasn’t changed through time.
Illuminating and often entertaining as it covers domestic life, working life and social life, sex, children, men, and engagement with the wider world, Gristwood notes in her introduction that though incredibly varied, the entries are connected by one telling theme: “if I were to pick out the single strongest emotions voiced through all these diary entries I think it would be anger – frustration. And that is something that our cultural norms have allowed women to voice only secretly. The diary has been the echo chamber for a woman’s own voice, as opposed to what she was supposed to say".
In this context, Secret Voices is organised by day from 1st January, so we spend a year in the company of the women whose words it shares. Each day features writings by several voices that traverse generations, geographical location, background and ages to present thoroughly fascinating insights into the thoughts, anxieties, dreams and desires of dozens of women, from writers, intellectuals and political figures, to actors, society personalities and poets.
Mixing writings by famous figures (Virginia Woolf, Oprah Winfrey and Alice Walker, for example) with the words of unknown women, a rich tapestry of insights and experiences are brought to life by these pages.
Joanne Owen
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Secret Voices A Year of Women’s Diaries Synopsis
A captivating collection of daily extracts from women's diaries, looking back over four centuries to discover how women's experience – of men and children, sex and shopping, work and the natural world – has changed down the years. And, of course, how it hasn't.
In this expansive anthology – from 1 January through to 31 December – you’ll find Lady Anne Clifford in the seventeenth century and Loran Hurnscot in the twentieth both stoically recording the demands of an unreasonable husband; Joan Wyndham and Anne Frank, at much the same time, but in wildly different settings, describing their first experiences with sex; and Anne Lister (TV’s Gentleman Jack) in eighteenth-century Yorkshire exploring her love affairs with women alongside Alice Walker in twentieth-century California.
Organised around the calendar year, with several selections for each day, this book is a fascinating record of how women were thinking, feeling and reacting to historical events. From Virginia Woolf relishing her new haircut and Oprah Winfrey meditating on her career to Emilie Davis chronicling the death of Abraham Lincoln and teenage Ma Yan yearning for education in poverty-stricken China, Secret Voices contains a rich mix of well-known diarists and less familiar ones, and often the voices echoing down the centuries sound eerily familiar today.
About This Edition
Sarah Gristwood Press Reviews
‘An extraordinary achievement. It's a book for all seasons – and all people. United across centuries, these women's voices open doors to lost worlds and make them seem familiar. A modern classic.’
Alison Weir, author of Queens of the Age of Chivalry
About Sarah Gristwood
Sarah Gristwood is a biographer, journalist and commentator on royal affairs. Her previous books include the bestselling Arbella: England’s Lost Queen, The Tudors in Love and biographies of Beatrix Potter, Winston Churchill, Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, and HM Queen Elizabeth II. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an Honorary Patron of Historic Royal Palaces, and regularly contributes to TV documentary series and coverage of royal events. She lives in Kent.
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