Book Review

The Diary of Dolly Lunt Burge, 1848-1879. Ed. by Christine Jacobson Carter. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. xliv, 264 pp. $40.00, isbn 0-8203-1863-9.)

Shadows on My Heart: The Civil War Diary of Lucy Rebecca Buck of Virginia. Ed. by Elizabeth R. Baer. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. xxxviii, 355 pp. $50.00, isbn 0-8203-1852-3.)

Mid-nineteenth-century women who wrote diaries and letters usually did so in a context where it was assumed that their most appropriate behavior was silent and that children were their only acceptable legacy. Increasingly, these notions were challenged by women who aspired to write and publish poems, plays, essays, and novels. Women who made such challenges were subject to criticism from those who considered them to have strayed from their proper sphere; few were able to withstand such criticism without a strong will, the necessity of earning a living, and the presence of supporters who endorsed their efforts. Yet many women turned to their pens as a means of self-expression; fearing the scorn of a discomfited public, most chose the appropriately private forms of letters and diaries. Not intended for publication, these literary expressions were nevertheless a means of assessing the world and one's place in it.	1
Such considerations were particularly problematic for white southern women of the planter class, whose culture was especially vehement in its prohibitions against female self-expression. The editors of these three volumes, each part of the series Southern Voices from the Past: Women's Letters, Diaries, and Writings under the general editorship of Carol Bleser, have done scholars and general readers alike a service in bringing to light three women whose writings would otherwise be unknown.	2
Bleser's own contribution to the series, the letters of Maria Bryan Harford Connell, presents us with an extraordinary woman living an ordinary life. Born into a prosperous Georgia family, evidently well educated and deeply religious, Maria Bryan wrote letters that detail the events and experiences of a woman of her time and position: the comings and goings of a large family; the activities of friends and neighbors; work done and undone; sicknesses and celebrations; community scandals, pleasures, and heartbreaks. She was an astute observer of her world who was not afraid to share her opinions with her sister Julia, to whom most of these letters were addressed. Not always the happiest of women and beset by the usual cares of her time and place, Maria wrote to explain herself and to make sense of her society. Her letters are chatty, thoughtful, and often charming. They allow the reader a close look into a woman's everyday reality and dreams.	3
The earliest letters in the collection show a young woman immersed in the details of family life and eager to confide in her recently married sister. Later letters voice her doubts about slavery and her relations with slaves, gossip about friends and family, worry about her mother's lengthy illness, and describe books and religious concerns. The letters contain a variety of briefly mentioned yet vivid characters: a minister afflicted with venereal disease, a white woman who gave birth in the woods to a black baby. In 1832 Maria married an army engineer who took her to New Orleans; from there her letters describe her loneliness as well as the city's cholera and yellow fever epidemics. After her husband's death in 1835, Maria returned to her family home and resumed her former life; her letters were similar to those she had written earlier, although family difficulties imparted a sadder tone to many. Julia, who would eventually bear eight children, sent some of them to be cared for and educated by their aunt, who wrote about their daily activities as well as her continuing loneliness even in the midst of activity. Her responsibilities were interrupted by travel to the North in 1839, a trip that highlighted her dependence on male family members' services as escorts and bankers. She married for the second time in 1841, but her letters continued to discuss family matters until her death in 1844.	. . .