Title: To find my own peace
Subtitle: Grace King in her journals, 1886-1910
First published: 2004
Description: "These previously unpublished private writings expand our understanding of Grace King (1852-1932) both as a writer and as a nineteenth-century, middle-class, white southern woman. A prolific New Orleans author whose work transcended the local-color genre popular in her day, King has long been admired for her versatility in many written forms, for her depictions of both black and white women in a variety of settings and situations, and for her insights into the intricate social structure of her native city." "Over a span of forty-six years, King produced four histories, three novels and two novellas, three collections of stories, two biographies, an autobiography, a play, and numerous articles and sketches. At age thirty-four she began a journal "to find my own peace in my own life." As Melissa Walker Heidari notes, King's journals offer "what is so lacking in her published autobiography: humor, irony, and a more candid assessment of herself and others. The Grace King of the autobiography is an interesting subject, but the Grace King of her journals is alive and compelling." King's journals became a sourcebook for writing ideas, an outlet for opinions on current issues that she felt uncomfortable discussing publicly, and a record of her experiences at home and on her travels in the northern United States and Europe. She also used her journals as a form of therapy for her grief over the loss of loved ones and for her regrets, both personal and professional." "This volume comprises King's journals of 1886-1901, 1904, and 1907-1910. Heidari's introduction discusses what the journals reveal about such topics as the lives of unmarried women in the nineteenth-century South, the ways Victorian families dealt with diseases like alcoholism and depression, and the challenges facing women writers of the period."--Jacket.
Subjects: American Authors, Authors, American, Diaries, Intellectual life, Women and literature, Diaries, women authors, New orleans (la.), social life and customs
Places: New Orleans (La.), Southern States
People: Grace Elizabeth King (1852-1932)
Time periods: 19th century, 20th century
LC classification: PS2178 .A428 2004