Details

Title

Marie Bashkirtseff

Subtitle

The Journal of a Young Artist

Author

Bashkirtseff, Marie
Serrano, Mary J.

Place of Publication

New York

Publisher

E.P. Dutton & Co.

Copyright Date

1887 Show more1887-01-01T00:00:00.000Z
1887-01-01T00:00:00.000Z Show less

Date of Publication

1887 Show more1887-01-01T00:00:00.000Z
1887-01-01T00:00:00.000Z Show less
1919 Show more1919-01-01T00:00:00.000Z
1919-01-01T00:00:00.000Z Show less

Collection

Scans used with permission from Cornell University Library.

Note

On 6 June 1924, Montgomery told her journal "This evening I was reading 'The Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff.' This book came out when I was a young girl and made a tremendous sensation. It was discussed in all the reviews. I longed to read it but books like that never penetrated to Cavendish and I could not afford to buy it. Recently a new edition was brought out and I sent for it. If it were published today for the first time it would hardly cause a ripple. We have had book after book of these intimate chronicles far more frank and sensational than poor Marie's passionate longings for fame and success. The diary is interesting at first but one tires of it as one reads on because it is just the same all the way through. It is a pitiful tragic record." Montgomery was probably right on all counts. The first edition of Bashkirtseff's diary was translated from French into English and published in 1887; Montgomery likely read an edition (which is highly abridged from the French original) closer to this one, with preface and afterward material added. Bashkirtseff (1858-1884) was born into privilege in Russia, later studying at the Académie Julian and exhibiting works at the Paris Salon. And while she achieved some measure of fame, it was her posthumously published diary that did create "ripples" in society and culture. It was a novel, intimate look into a woman artist's life. It includes lengthy narratives about the society in which she moved, and she expressed "passionate longings for fame and success." Montgomery noted that "I do not think Marie was a very agreeable person to live with. Her excessive craving for worldly success was abnormal and affected me unpleasantly, like a morbid thirst. ... I think the intensity of her desire was a symptom of the disease which killed her. Her subconsciousness knew her inherent tendency and realized that life might be short; hence it imbued her with a feverish desire to attain before death overtook her. I think her book will live because of its painful sincerity" ("L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1922-1925," p. 253). Bashkirtseff died at age 25 from tuberculosis, which, at the time, would be considered a fittingly "romantic" end to an artist's life.

Genre

journal