tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post6316592559648439868..comments2024-03-28T04:26:30.557-05:00Comments on Boston 1775: Analyzing the Children of the RevolutionUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-41629884039679561342007-08-19T21:23:00.000-05:002007-08-19T21:23:00.000-05:00Thanks! When I first started getting WMQ, I never ...Thanks! When I first started getting <I>WMQ</I>, I never imagined being reviewed in it. Much less so "persuasively"!J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-33130397103732209532007-08-19T15:29:00.000-05:002007-08-19T15:29:00.000-05:00On a different note, just got my WMQ and was thril...On a different note, just got my WMQ and was thrillled to see the good news - how often are any of us desribed as persuasive? Congratulations.lemminghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06767103318863906140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-87840092401741096022007-08-14T21:10:00.000-05:002007-08-14T21:10:00.000-05:00Given the implausibility of the diary's content me...Given the implausibility of the diary's content mentioned by John, the addition of a page to the second edition "confessing" that Dudley was an invention of Mary Williams Greenly who wrote the diary expressly for The Cambridge of 1776, and the fact that most library catalog records for this book include this information as a note, why is Dorothy Dudley still treated as a genuine person and contemporary diarist by the occasional scholar and perhaps by the more than occasional student? Why, to give a specific example, are the diaries of Elizabeth Drinker, Dorothy Dudley, and Baroness von Riedesel "invaluable in bringing forward the female perspective on the war" (Volo and Volo, Daily Life During the American Revolution, 2003).<BR/><BR/>The answer lies in the presentation of the "diary" and how it is treated in some bibliographic sources.<BR/><BR/>Thanks to Google Books, the reader may see for him/herself how the diary is presented in the first edition of the volume published by the Cambridge Ladies Centennial Committee in 1876:<BR/>http://books.google.com/books?id=tBS-pH4Zc7kC&dq=%22dorothy+dudley%22&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=x_xWk0WTKQ&sig=kelah_oZj1STU0k7CucBrvkeKOU#PPR3,M1<BR/><BR/>From the cover and the title page of the volume to the last page of the excerpts, the "diary" is presented straight as if it is real, "now first publish'd." Miss Dudley is treated as a historic personage. To be sure the Cambridge ladies had their tongues firmly in their cheeks but only their friends could be sure that there was no Dorothy Dudley. Those responsible for The Cambridge of 1776 immediately realized this and added a disclaimer in the second edition (1876). Similarly, 124 years later, someone added a note to the front page of the Google Books version explaining that the diary of Dorothy Dudley was written by Miss. Greely.<BR/><BR/>The second reason why some people innocently treat Dorothy Dudley diary" as a contemporary source for the event of 1775 is that some bibliographic sources omit the necessary warning or present the diary in such a way that the warning falls to the wayside. A prime example of the missing warning is the Making of America's online version of the book at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/b/bib/bibperm?q1=AFJ7579. This is the same first edition one can obtain through Google but without the disclaimer. (Strangely, "Dorothy Dudley" is identified in the reference as born in 1848!).<BR/><BR/>Should students eschew the internet for the library they may well discover The Cambridge of 1776 in an edition published In 1971 in The New York Times' Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution Series III. To be sure some, but not all, library catalog records for this book contain the note identifying M. G. Greenly as the diary's author. But the unwary reader who missed the fine print, as it were, may be excused if he or she assumes that the diary's inclusion in the Times' estimable Eyewitness Accounts series means that it is just that.<BR/><BR/>Robert Cameron MitchellAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com