The Diary May Be from Dixie But the Editor Is Not: Mary Chestnut and Southern Print History

This essay examines Mary Boykin Chesnut's A Diary from Dixie, in its five iterations in print, tracing the text from its development first as an unpublished diary to the labor of its various editors (in its serialized and published editions). Close analysis of the four print publications of Chesnut's diary illuminates how the diary's editors became writers while simultaneously maintaining Chesnut's status as author.