A Southern Journal of 1838: Its Historical, Social and Literary Backgrounds

(From the Introduction)

The discovery and study of a journal of considerable age is not unique. Journals, both published and unpublished, written alike by the famed and the obscure, are legion. A recently compiled bibliography of American diaries before 1861, which includes only the published diaries, is a substantial volume. It is, therefore, with some trepidation that I undertake for my thesis the study and editing of the journal of an almost completely unknown Southern woman who wrote it more than a century ago.