Anne Home Livingston, born Nancy Shippen, was the author of one of the most interesting and best-written diaries of early America. The two manuscript volumes of her journal, which cover a period of roughly ten years, served as Livingston's response to the tensions caused by her abusive husband, a situation beyond her endurance and control. Her journal entries display her exceptional ability to report events, convey images and atmosphere, and express deep emotions. In addition to its historical and literary value, this personal document is valuable for women's studies in its descriptions of how Livingston responded to and lived out a woman's assigned role in eighteenth-century American middle-class society.

Livingston's story is in both personal and literary terms a tragedy resulting from women's dependence on their parents' presumably wiser guidance on the choice of marriage partners. Brought up to be submissive to her father and later to her...