SOURCE: “Franklin Speaking?,” in Biography, Spring, 1999, pp. 262–66.

In the following negative review of When Memory Speaks, Stannard criticizes Conway's selection of material for the collection and faults several of her theories regarding the genre of autobiography.

Any book by Jill Ker Conway demands respect. A distinguished feminist scholar, she is also a fine autobiographer. The Road from Coorain and True North established her as a leading voice of the genre. Her academic work investigating the suppression and release of the female voice is no less powerful, and the two volumes she edited entitled Written by Herself are essential reading for anyone interested in women's memoirs. Somehow she has also managed to find time to serve as vice president at the University of Toronto and to spend a decade as president of Smith College. Now she is a visiting professor in M.I.T.'s Program in Science, Technology...