SOURCE: "Introduction," in My Life, Liveright Publishing Corp., 1927, pp. 1-8.

In the following introduction to My Life, Duncan explains her difficulties writing an autobiography.

I confess that when it was first proposed to me I had a terror of writing [My Life]. Not that my life has not been more interesting than any novel and more adventurous than any cinema and, if really well written, would not be an epoch-making recital, but there's the rub—the writing of it!

It has taken me years of struggle, hard work and research to learn to make one simple gesture, and I know enough about the Art of writing to realise that it would take me again just so many years of concentrated effort to write one simple, beautiful sentence. How often have I contended that although one man might toil to the Equator and have tremendous exploits with lions and...