Prenshaw, professor emerita of Southern studies at Louisiana State University, looks at the life writing of 18 Southern women authors, analyzing various issues such as racial consciousness and
the deflection of personal achievement. All of the authors and works presented came of age during the late southern Victorian period, 1861-1930s, from Belle Kearney's A Slaveholder's Daughter
(1900) to Elizabeth Spencer's Landscapes of the Heart. Other authors discussed include Zora Neale Hurston, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ellen Glasgow, Helen Keller, and Lillian Smith. The book
examines narratives of martial identity, such as Mary Hamilton's Trials of the Earth, and calls attention to works by women who devoted their lives to social and political movements, like
Virginia Durr's Outside the Magic Circle. The book is for those interested in Southern literature, autobiography, and the work of Southern women writers. Annotation 穢2011 Book News, Inc.,
Portland, OR (booknews.com)
