Showing results for "mary" in Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence

The incomparable Civil War diarist Mary Chesnut wrote that she had the luck “always to stumble in on the real show.” Married to a high-ranking member of the Confederate government, she was ideally placed to watch and to record the South’s headlong plunge to ruin, and she left in her journals an unsurpassed account of the old regime’s death throes, its moment of high drama in world history. With intelligence and passion she described the turbulent events of politics and war, as well as the complex society around her.

Described as "the first blogger", Mary MacLane lived a tortured life, ahead of her time. Her beloved father died when she was a young child, and at the age of eight, her stepfather moved the family from its home in Winnipeg, Canada, to Montana in the United States, where young Mary had a hard time making friends. Her sensational autobiographical style of writing was considered scandalous, as she told of her bohemian lifestyle, feminist politics, and open bisexuality.

Mary and Me: A Lasting Link through Ink explores a 30-year friendship between two women: one who had never learned to cultivate female friendships, and the other who had managed to gather and maintain a large group of friends throughout her adult life. The fact that thousands of handwritten letters between them linked these two together is just part of the intriguing story.