The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker: The Life Cycle of an Eighteenth-Century Woman by Elaine Forman Crane

Abstract

It might seem somewhat strange to review a book sixteen years after it first hit the bookshops, but this new abridged edition of Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker's diary, which "falls somewhere between a historical and a liter-ary document," is certainly worthy of critical appraisal (xxvii). To put it quite plainly the diary, which covers the years between 1758 and 1807, is a  fascinating insight into the thoughts and actions of Drinker (1735–1807), the wife of Henry Drinker, a Quaker Philadelphian who lived through a tumultuous period of change. This edition by Elaine Forman Crane, based on the  three-volume unabridged diary published in 1991, has a new preface and provides a fresh audience with the opportunity to become acquainted with the woman who can, if you allow the text to guide you, become a "friend" (vii).