Anne Clifford describes the dramatic and tragic events of her life in the seventeenth century. Of how she danced in the masques of Inigo Jones, experienced both joy and abuse in her two marriages, lost and gained an inheritance, and successfully defended her rights against kings and armies. All told in rich detail amidst the backdrop of daily life.

Introduction1 The Lady Anne Clifford’s Memoir, 16032 Countess of Dorset’s Diary, 1616, 1617 and 16193 The Life of Me the Lady Anne Clifford, 1589–1649 4 The Lady of the North, Yearly Memoirs, 1650–75 5 Countess of Pembroke’s Daybook, 1676 Index

Lady Anne Clifford (1590–1676) lived a long and rich life, experiencing the courts of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I, as well as the dangers of the civil wars. She was an aristocrat, historical scholar, Sheriff and Lord of Westmorland, daughter, mother and wife. Her autobiographies tell the dramatic story of her battles to gain the inheritance of her father’s vast Northern lands, and her later attempts to protect her rights in these lands against antagonistic tenants, hostile military administrations, and the vagaries of wars and political movements. She describes her often unhappy marriages to Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset and Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. We see her joy in the lives of her daughters and their children, and her friendships with a wide circle of aristocratic and more humble people. And always there is the backdrop of the daily affairs of her life. Anne Clifford’s autobiographies provide one of the most comprehensive descriptions of life in the seventeenth century. They creatively engage and innovate with a variety of narrative forms within the emerging genre of autobiography. They tell a dramatic story, and will attract readers interested in the seventeenth century, the lives of individuals in times of conflict, and certainly those already interested in the life of Anne Clifford. Scholars of early modern culture, history and literary studies will find this material invaluable.

‘The edition succeeds in rendering the text of the Great Books far more accessible than hitherto, and so represents a significant milestone in the study of the manuscripts created under the countess’s direction. Professor Malay’s hope that it ‘will encourage greater interest in and scholarship on Anne Clifford’ will surely be realised.’David X. Carpenter, University of Oxford, EHR, February 2018‘Anne Clifford’s Autobiographical Writing, 1590-1676, Jessica Malay’s newest contribution to Anne Clifford Studies, is a much-needed, comprehensive edition of Clifford’s extensive autobiographical corpus, as well as a perfect complement to Malay’s 201 edition of Anne Clifford’s Great Books of Record. Clifford is a familiar name among scholars of early modern Englishwomen’s life writing in part because of the sheer amount she produced. Clifford developed a complex, interconnected system of self-accounting that involved daily diary-like entries, yearly memoirs and biographical narratives about family members past and present that worked in tandem with her antiquarian projects and legal battles. Indeed, nearly all of her labor – textual and otherwise – contributed to her lengthy, and ultimately successful, quest to gain what she believed to be her rightful inheritance (extensive properties that her father, George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, had designated to his brother instead). But Clifford continued to record the events of her and her family members’ lives long after she secured here inheritance in 1643 and, indeed, right up to the day before she died. Clifford’s life writing demonstrates a woman’s agency in action, provides a snapshot of antiquarian trends and techniquest in seventeenth-century England, sheds lights on elite English culture during this period, and contributes to ongoing conversations about the nature of auto/biography in early modern England.’ Julie A. Eckerle, University of Minnesota, Morris, Early Modern Women Journal, Vol. 13, No. 2, Spring 2019'These memoirs, and the diary and daybook that bookend Malay's well-edited and annotated volume, will be invaluable to scholars and students of the period looking for a window into a remarkable life and the deliberate acts of autobiographical preservation-both literary and material-that memorialize that life.'Seventeenty-Century News