Linda Anderson is Professor of Modern English and American Literature at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Her recent publications include Women and Autobiography in the Twentieth Century (1997), Women's Lives/Women's Times (edited with Trev Broughton, 1996) and Territories of Desire in Queer Culture (edited with David Alderson, 2000).

An indispensable introduction to the study of autobiography as well as a historical overview of autobiographical writing from St Augustine to the present day.

Acknowledgements Introduction Authors and Subjects The Law of Genre Poststructuralist Interventions 1. Historians of the Self Saint Augustine's Confessions Non-conforming Selves: John Bunyan's Grace Abounding Serial Selves: James Boswell and Hester Thrale Sublime Egos: Rousseau and Wordsworth 2. Subjectivity, Representation and Narrative Freud's Unconscious Barthes' Autobiographical Signs Derrida and the Traces of Autobiography Feminism and Poststructuralism 3. Other Subjects Gender, Modernism and Autobiography Locating Difference Landscape for a Good Woman Postcolonial Subjects 4. Narrative Contemporary Memoir Writing 5. Practising Autobiography Personal Criticism Testimony and Memory Politics and Memory Glossary Bibliography Index