The Memoir of 1603 and the Diary of 1616-1619

Book excerpt: Anne Clifford’s memoir for the year 1603 and her diary of 1616-1619 are invaluable records of the daily life and social and family relationships of a noblewoman of her time. In them she records her travels, her reading, her religious observances, her relationships with her mother, her husband, and her child, and the progress—or lack thereof—of her legal efforts to obtain what she viewed as her inheritance, extensive estates in the north of England. The two texts offer a unique view of the life, feelings, experience, and self-fashioning of this extraordinary woman, and they bring to life the history and literary culture of the period in a refreshing and direct way. This Broadview edition includes an illuminating introduction that places these texts in their historical and literary context. The appendices include poems dedicated and addressed to Clifford, her funeral sermon, and the “Great Picture” of the Clifford family.