Seventeenth-Century Manuscript Sources of Alice Thornton's Life

When the Surtees Society published the only edition of Alice Thornton's autobiography, it omitted and restructured parts of this seventeenth-century gentry woman's self-representation. One of the three manuscripts available to the Victorian editor has since disappeared, but the others, now...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inStudies in English literature, 1500-1900 Vol. 45; no. 1; pp. 135 - 155
Main Author Anselment, Raymond A.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Baltimore Rice University 2005
Johns Hopkins University Press
Subjects
17th century
Autobiographical literature
Autobiographies
Children
Daughters
Divinity
English literature
Historical text analysis
Husbands
Literary criticism
Mercy
Mothers
Prayer
Rumors
Slander
Thornton, Alice (1626-1707)
Writers
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Summary:When the Surtees Society published the only edition of Alice Thornton's autobiography, it omitted and restructured parts of this seventeenth-century gentry woman's self-representation. One of the three manuscripts available to the Victorian editor has since disappeared, but the others, now owned by a private collector, provide a significant corrective to the published version. An analysis of the editorial changes that limit Thornton's intent reveals the complex dimensions of this domestic and spiritual memoir. The manuscripts redefine a conventional concern with divine deliverance in their author's affirmation of her faith and family, a validation of personal integrity and divine mercy that further affirms her importance among early modern women writers.
ISSN:0039-3657
1522-9270
1522-9270
DOI:10.1353/sel.2005.0003