Overview

A captivating collection of 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 fascinating anthology, with a selection of entries for every day of the year, you'll find Lady Anne Clifford in the seventeenth century and Loran Hurscot 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 in the eighteenth-century north of England exploring her love affairs with women alongside Alice Walker in twentieth-century California. Queen Victoria laments the loss of her husband; housewife Nella Last finds that World War II has given her an unexpected independence from hers. Educationalist Sylvia Ashton-Warner in modern New Zealand asks how to juggle work and family; Canadian artist Emily Carr how to manage her work and her identity. Mary Shelley records the death of her baby in half a line; Anne Morrow Lindberg heartbreakingly chronicles the weeks after the kidnap and murder of her baby son. From Barbara Pym purchasing daring lingerie and Virginia Woolf relishing her new haircut to Sylvia Plath chronicling her ups and her downs and a stoical Amelia Stewart Knight on the pioneer trail, this book contains a rich mix of incredibly well-known diarists and more obscure ones, and often the voices echoing down the centuries sound eerily familiar today.

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9781849948159

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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

‘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 'Poignant, surprising and, at times, heart-breaking, this wonderful anthology brings the past within touching distance. The sort of book you return to again and again.' Tracy Borman, author of Elizabeth's Women  

‘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 'Poignant, surprising and, at times, heart-breaking, this wonderful anthology brings the past within touching distance. The sort of book you return to again and again.' Tracy Borman, author of Elizabeth's Women   'An intriguing, highly snackable guide to women’s experiences over the past four centuries.' Independent This compelling book … provides a unique lens into historical events from around the world through the eyes of the women who experienced them first-hand. The mix of diarists included means there is truly something for everyone. * This England * …Filled with such unexpected twists and turns…totally addictive to peruse. Without exception, every entry sizzles, each one revealing some peculiar detail or fascinating insight, and together, forming a rich and vivid picture of the female experience… It is these private, long-hidden musings which Gristwood has so cleverly unearthed, and which Secret Voices – this treasure of a book – so elegantly, strikingly captures. -- Alice Loxton * The Daily Telegraph *

Author Information

Sarah Gristwood is a best-selling biographer, former film journalist, and commentator on royal affairs. She has appeared in most of the UK's leading newspapers and magazines. She wrote two bestselling Tudor biographies, Arbella: England's Lost Queen and Elizabeth and Leicester; and the eighteenth-century story Perdita: Royal Mistress, Writer, Romantic which was selected as Radio 4 Book of the Week. A regular media commentator on royal and historical affairs, Sarah was one of the team providing Radio 4's live coverage of the royal wedding. She is a Fellow of the RSA, and an Honorary Patron of Historic Royal Palaces. She is the author of The Story of Beatrix Potter and Game of Queens: The Women Who Made the 16th Century.

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