The autobiographical narrative of Anne, Lady Halkett.
Born in the early 1620s, Anne, Lady Halkett (née Murray) grew up on the
fringes of the English court during a period of increasing political
tension. From 1644 to 1699, Halkett recorded her personal and political
experiences in both England and Scotland in a series of manuscript
meditations and an autobiographical narrative called A True Account of
My Life. Royalism, romance, and contemporary religious debates are
central to Halkett's vivid portrayal of her life as a single woman,
wife, mother, and widow. Collectively, the materials edited here offer
the opportunity to explore how Halkett's meditational practice informed
her life writing in the only version of her writings to date available
in a fully modernized edition. The forty-four meditations in this volume
redefine the importance of Halkett's contribution to seventeenth-century
life writing.