Recording and Reordering

Essays on the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Diary and Journal

Dan Doll and Jessica Munns (Eds.)

2006
248 pages
$83.00
ISBN 9781611482409
LC 2005018059
Bucknell Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture

Personal forms of writing such as the journal and the diary, which developed from the sixteenth century onward, remain a neglected field of study. Diaries and journals are often regarded as an artless transcript of reality, the raw "data" for historical accounts, or as quaint records of domestic and foreign travel. Recording and Reordering is a collection of essays that discuss the diary and journal as a literary form, one that like any other form, only more self-consciously, is situated on the borders of private and public life. The essays offer approaches to the question of how a diary is written, who writes them, where, for whom, and in what form, as well as how they are published and edited. As a collection, these essays provide a new look at this fascinating genre. Dan Doll is Associate Professor of English at the University of New Orleans. Jessica Munns is Professor of Literature at the University of Denver.

Review
"Recording and Reordering...is of clear value to anyone interested in the interpretation and cultural theory, as well as the editing and history-of-editing, of diaries and journals--not only, but especially, those by women."--Adam Potkay (Studies in English Literature, 48:3, Summer 2008)

About the editors:

Dan Doll is Associate Professor of English at the University of New Orleans. He has written on Swift and Johnson, particularly on the function of language in their works.

Jessica Munns is Professor of Literature at the University of Denver. Her most recent book is Gender, Power, and Privilege in Early-Modern Europe (2003), co-edited with Penny Richards. She has written widely on Restoration and eighteenth-century literature, and edits the journal Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research.